The Tale of a Hybrid and a Vampire
by idiot-wind89
Summary: A Klaroline-centric rewrite of the last two episodes of the Originals. Rated M, just to be safe.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hi all, just stopping in to publish a little piece I've been working on - a Klaroline-centric alternate ending to The Originals. I've tried to stick to the general plot of the last two episodes, so you will see some borrowed dialogue. **

**This is Part I and addresses the events in episode 5x12 as told from Caroline's POV. **

**Thanks to livingdeadblondequeen for reviewing this draft before I posted it! She enjoyed it, which is reassuring since I haven't ventured heavily into canon as far as Klaroline is concerned for some time.**

**The title may change if I can come up with something more "original" - LOL, but both livingdeadblondequeen and I had it in mind and like similarity it has to the actual title of 5x12. **

**Please review me! I'm always curious for your thoughts. **

* * *

"And where do you keep the hybrids? In the root cellar?" the familiar accented voice questioned sarcastically.

A pleasant shiver ran down the length of her spine as she shot him an unimpressed glare in reaction to his ill-timed interruption.

Feigning a pleasant expression for the group of new students she was showing around the boarding school, she excused herself, advising them that she needed a moment with the lost janitor named 'Bob.'

"Come on, Bob," she said, narrowing her eyes in Klaus's direction, "I'll show you the toilets."

She heard a surprised scoff escape under his breath as she swiped past him for the hallway that would lead to her office.

His tentative footsteps down the hall behind her.

As they walked, she waited for his empty threats to discontinue his generous donations citing hybrid discrimination and historical negationism as he observed the many references and tributes throughout the school to those supernatural families who had once fought against him – the Salvatores, the Bennetts, the Lockwoods – to name a few, but those familiar comments never came.

It made her uneasy and a pit formed at the bottom of her stomach. He wasn't simply here to break a promise he had made to her all those years ago and share a moment with her, or to chat about Hope's progress at the school, he was here for something more important. She could sense that he was carrying the weight of something.

She opened the door to her office, holding it for him so he could enter and allowing her to catch his familiar sweet masculine scent as it floated by her.

Turning her back on him to close the door, she paused to take a breath in an effort to disregard the low heat just his presence could still stir deep inside of her.

Regaining her composure and focusing on his impromptu appearance, she spun around.

"Seriously?" she scowled, charging into her office and towards the desk where he was busy fidgeting with her nameplate. "You're not exactly a selling point for this place," she chastised him.

She snatched the nameplate from his hand as he moved past her, his back towards her.

"Because these kids have so many other options," he said sarcastically.

"I thought we made a deal about you showing up in Mystic Falls," she retorted, directly referencing their tryst in the woods when she briefly allowed herself to succumb to her heart's desires.

He pointed at her accusatorily. "That was a long time ago."

His conviction took her aback and she gave him a surprised look.

He relented, dropping his hands with a defeated sigh.

"I need your help, Caroline," he revealed. "Hope is dying – she consumed the dark magic and now it's consuming her. She won't survive tonight's full moon," he said desperately.

His news stunned her as she struggled to process it.

"She trigged her curse?" she questioned as she put the pieces together.

She wondered what kind of situation Hope had gotten into in New Orleans during her absence from the boarding school. The whole reason Hope was enrolled in the boarding school was to keep her safe and away from the constant darkness that might lure an impressionable child in.

"It was my fault," Klaus acknowledged, looking away from her guiltily.

She didn't want to know the details, but she had a feeling it was more complicated than that. Klaus had been capable of doing horrible things, but she knew he would never intentionally put his daughter in harm's way.

"I-I thought that the crescent wolves could control their transformations?" she asked, confused, wondering why Klaus was so concerned about the full moon if Hope was able to control her transformation.

"Not the first one," Klaus shook his head. "It's a rite of passage – unavoidable," he explained helplessly, his eyes darting around her office as though he might find the solution to his problem there amongst her office furniture and paperwork.

"What do you need from me?" she offered readily, hoping there was some way she could help him.

He stepped towards her somewhat hesitantly and she grew anxious with the rise of his serious expression.

"I need a very rare type of witch…from the Gemini Coven," he revealed reticently, awaiting her reaction as she realized what he was implying.

There were only two witches that she knew from the Gemini Coven – her daughters, Lizzie and Josie.

"You can't be serious," she scoffed, bewildered by what his request would entail for her family.

"I need your daughters, Caroline," he confirmed directly.

She shook her head. "No! Absolutely not!" she denied flatly, turning towards her liquor cabinet. "They're children," she reminded him. Her girls were younger than Hope. She and Alaric were trying to maintain a delicate balance between protecting them and allowing them to embrace their supernatural identities. She feared that allowing them to use their magic to fulfill Klaus's objectives would disrupt that balance.

"They're siphoner witches – it's what they're born to do – siphon magic from one thing," Klaus reminded her in an effort to reason with her – as though rationality would work with her when it came to her daughters.

"And put it in another," she finished for him as she filled a liquor glass for stressful occasions like these. "So after they siphon it from Hope, what are they supposed to do with it?" she questioned, suspecting that he'd not thought that far ahead. Even if she was going to entertain her daughters being involved, there was no way she would allow it if there wasn't a destination for the dark magic. "You can't just shove a demon in a jar and put it on a shelf," she underscored acerbically before allowing the amber liquor to burn her tongue.

Klaus looked at her solemnly as he released a sigh of resignation.

She tensed, an ominous feeling stirring in the pit of her stomach.

"They'll put it in me," Klaus said decidedly.

His reply caught her off guard and she felt the liquor catch in her throat as she swallowed quickly contemplating how to respond. Putting black magic in one of the most powerful supernatural beings – and in one as impulsive and hot-headed as Klaus – was not one of Klaus's best ideas.

"That's great," she replied, "And then you can practice mindful meditation while we just cross our fingers and hope that you don't develop some sort of temper…oh wait," she said sarcastically before taking another drink.

Klaus responded by removing the liquor glass from her hand, giving her a serious look, signalling to her that there was more to his plan that she would not approve of.

"You remember when you and your friends threatened to chain me up and drown me in cement and drop me in the deepest ocean?" he recalled.

She cringed inwardly, feeling guilty for her involvement in her friends' historic efforts to end him back when she had such a black and white view of the world.

"Well, when your daughters have put the magic in me," he said, gesturing towards himself. "I need you to make good on that threat," he finished.

Her eyes widened incredulously as a look of puzzlement spread across her features. He couldn't be serious.

"I won't fight you this time," he assured her, shaking his head.

She scoffed. "I was just a kid back then, I didn't know…" she paused. "That was a long time ago," she reminded him, turning his own words back on him. If he could use that excuse with her, then it was only fair that she could use that excuse on him.

"I can't allow my daughter to die," he said, a look of desperation etched on his face. "But I promise you, I will not endanger yours," he said sincerely, placing his hands upon her forearms.

She tried to avoid his pleading expression by closing her eyes dismissively.

"Caroline, please," he said, in that way only he could say her name to capture her attention. "Caroline, I'm begging you," he emphasized, his eyes digging into hers.

* * *

"What do we get if we say yes?" her daughter, Josie, asked, taking advantage of the situation to negotiate terms with her.

"The warm feeling from your heart that comes from helping a friend in need," she retorted with an exaggerated smile as she clasped her hands together.

Klaus was pacing behind her impatiently as she gave her parent-child pep talk.

"Well, we are in need of new cell phones," Lizzie suggested with folded arms and a smirk.

She shouldn't have been surprised that her daughters would take advantage of the situation – this is exactly how she operated with her mom when she was their age.

"And," Josie cut in, "permission to go to the Senior Solstice Dance."

Her mouth fell open, about to respond, but Josie continued.

"And, you and dad take the skirt length rules out of the dress code; it's anti-feminist and oppressive," Josie added to their list of demands. She supposed she couldn't blame Josie for the request. The dress code hadn't been drafted by her and there had been so much involved in establishing the school that when Alaric implemented the archaic policy, she hadn't given it much attention at the time.

"And, not cute," Lizzie chimed in.

"No to the phones," she said pointing towards Lizzie. They had just received cell phones for their birthday the year prior. They did not need new phones.

Lizzie and Josie frowned.

"Maybe to the dance," she continued, pointing towards Josie. "And yes to defying the patriarchy one plaid skirt at a time," she acquiesced with a smile, again, having not been responsible for the drafting of the dress code in the first place and so happy to dismantle it.

Josie smiled at her.

"Deal?" she asked her daughters hopefully, unsure of what Klaus's reaction would be if they refused.

While she trusted that Klaus wouldn't hurt her or her girls, when it came to saving the life of his daughter, she wasn't sure what lengths he would go to. However, she could understand his desperation, being the mother of twin girls, herself.

Rather than forcing her daughters to do what he required, she suspected that Klaus would undermine her parenting decision and kidnap the girls to go to the nearest Apple store to pick out their preferred phones in exchange for their cooperation.

Her daughters exchanged glances at one another, communicating without verbal cues as they often did as twins. Lizzie shrugged at Josie, leaving it up to her to make the call.

"Deal," Josie answered for them.

She smiled appreciatively, but also proud of herself and her girls for being able to navigate a teenage parenting moment somewhat successfully.

"Now, Mr. Mikaelson is going to explain exactly what he needs you to do," she said as she stepped out of the way for Klaus to speak to the girls, "very clearly and kindly without even a hint of a temper or frustration," she said as much to Klaus as she did to her daughters – a subtle threat to Klaus to behave himself so as not to frighten Lizzie and Josie.

"First of all," Klaus began. "Thank you…"

Before Klaus could continue, his face contorted in pain and he released a loud roar of agony as a stake pierced through his chest.

He dropped to the ground, revealing Alaric standing behind him with his crossbow.

"Dad!" Josie cried, obviously fearful and confused by what had just happened.

She was trying not to alarm their girls and Klaus had been on his best behaviour up until that point – who would have thought that Alaric would have been the one to sabotage that.

Alaric stepped over Klaus's body towards them.

"Whatever the hell is going on here, no!" Alaric insisted firmly.

* * *

She charged towards Alaric as he entered the library of the school, where she had been waiting for him after he had locked Klaus up in the basement of the school to buy time to contemplate the next move.

"I'm confiscating this forever," she said flatly, grabbing his crossbow and setting it aside.

"Fine," he replied resentfully. "It's only for the security of the school, but apparently that's a thing of the past since you're just inviting Voldemort to campus."

"Ric, we started this school to protect these kids. Hope is one of them and she's in trouble. We can't just turn our back on her," she retorted.

"He still clouds your judgment," Alaric said with disgust.

She scoffed and dropped her hands to her sides. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about Klaus Mikaelson – a cockroach of a creature who wrought havoc on this earth for a thousand years and can never be stamped out ever – and you just want to give him more evil power?"

Words escaped her as she stood there silently trying her best to maintain her composure against the onslaught of Alaric's criticism.

"Caroline, I…I know your intentions are good, and I want to help Hope…of course I do…but we can't call another witch…use one of the teachers? Bonnie?" Alaric suggested optimistically – or perhaps desperately.

She shook her head. "This is not something Bonnie can do - our girls can," she stressed to him. "And then you can pop a bottle of champagne and watch him sink to the bottom of the Atlantic – everyone wins!" she said, referring to Klaus, trying to convince Alaric of the plan with feigned enthusiasm, though the thought of sinking Klaus to the bottom of the ocean like the Titanic made her wince. Notwithstanding her sorted history with the hybrid, there wasn't one part of her that wanted to celebrate the demise of Klaus Mikaelson.

"How many times have we tried to sink him to the bottom of the ocean?" Alaric countered, reminding her of all the times when they had tried to put an end to Klaus.

"He's a willing participant this time," she explained, hoping that would change things from Alaric's perspective.

"Alright, fine," Alaric relented. "Let's just pretend for one insane moment that you have reason enough to believe that that's true now, you think that's gonna stick? The ocean isn't big enough to hold him down, Care," he stressed forcefully.

A commotion from the basement interrupted their heated discussion.

"Oh no," she said, spinning around towards the entrance of the library as Alaric grabbed his crossbow.

Klaus swooshed into the room, the stake that had been formerly lodged in his chest, now in his hand as he inspected it. "Very impressive system – secure I'm sure if you are a baby werewolf navigating puberty." Klaus tossed the stake on the ground. "But, I'm a little past that," he reminded them.

"Klaus," she said to him warningly, concerned that Alaric might have done more harm than good by riling him up.

"Alaric's right, the ocean won't hold me," he acknowledged as he leaned against the wall. "But when I transfer the Hollow's magic out of hope, I don't intend to drown it," he revealed, removing what appeared to be a stake carved from a branch of a tree.

"What is that?" she questioned tentatively as she stepped forward, hoping the answer would not be what she thought it was.

"This," he started, looking at the wooden stake, "is the last remaining white oak stake," he revealed stepping down towards them and approaching her. "When the power is in me, there's only one way to make sure it's gone for good – someone needs to kill me," he said, looking at her seriously.

* * *

As the school bell rang, signalling the end of recess and the pending start of the final class of the day, Alaric had put his foot down and insisted that they and the girls would not be helping Klaus, looking for her to follow him out of the library in solidarity to leave Klaus to fend for himself.

She gave Klaus an apologetic look and put on a good front with a defeated sigh as she started towards Alaric. This prompted a satisfied Alaric to turn his back as he left the library, giving her an opportunity to look back to Klaus, mouthing for him to meet her at the old mill on the Salvatore property.

The old mill was the hangout spot for the Salvatore students who wanted to escape the prying eyes of the school faculty. With Klaus's appearance, it was quickly serving the same purpose for her as she tried to avoid Alaric's prying eyes and any faculty member who might spot her with Klaus and report back to Alaric.

Klaus was not long behind her as she waited for him with clean clothes – Stefan's old clothes – for him to change into, having torn and bloodied what he had been wearing previously.

Allowing him the privacy to dress, she gazed out over the forested Salvatore property from the second level of the mill.

As she waited for him to make some suggestive remark about their past times together in these woods, it was all she could think about to herself – the time when she had thought him to be Tyler and she'd attacked him with her mouth, when they set out to research the expression triangle and he'd buried the twelve witches that she killed for Bonnie, when she'd confronted her feelings about his departure to New Orleans though he'd been Silas in disguise, to when they'd finally embraced the tension and the feelings between them all those years ago on the condition that he would never return to Mystic Falls. She tingled briefly at the thought before she was reminded by the reality of the fact that in a few short hours, his promise to her would become more final than she ever thought it would be. For the third time, she felt like her heart was being betrayed.

"They fit fine, a bit dusty but…" Klaus said as he approached from behind to stand beside her, interrupting her thoughts.

She glanced at the clothing briefly, a shudder vibrating throughout her body with the brief fleeting memory of Stefan and the bitter feelings the memory stirred within her.

"Well the previous owner died a decade ago so," she mentioned, looking away from Klaus, trying to contain her resentment. "You know he chose not to warn me before sacrificing his life either," she pointed out, unable to prevent it from spilling out over the top.

"Caroline," he started sympathetically.

She put her hand in between them. "Don't – look, why didn't you tell me the truth? Did you think that I wouldn't let you go through with it?" she questioned exasperatedly.

"Perhaps I didn't want to know either way," Klaus answered defensively, giving her a brief moment of pause. His response indicated that his feelings for her still lingered – that if she was all too willing to help him sacrifice himself then he'd be hurt and if she refused to help him on the basis of her feelings then it would be more difficult for him to carry out his planned sacrifice for his daughter's sake.

"Where do you even get a white oak stake?" she wondered, under the belief that the stakes had been destroyed.

Klaus looked away from her, seemingly ashamed. "It was decades ago," he admitted. "I was going to destroy it, but the weight of immortality was heavier then," he elaborated, suggesting that there had been a time – contrary to the speech he had given to her about being human during their Miss Mystic Falls date – when being one of the most powerful supernatural beings was not all he had made it out to be.

"Maybe we can buy you some time," she thought aloud, desperately searching for another way to protect help without necessitating her father's death – for both selfless and selfish motivations.

Klaus appeared more pessimistic.

"The magic in Hope is rooted too deeply," he explained looking to her. "Tonight, when she's trapped in that space between human and beast, that's when your daughters can remove it from her," he said decidedly.

"Are you sure there's no other way?" she wondered, hoping he would have an alternative in mind before they executed his original plan. There was always another way and it always seemed that Klaus had a backup plan. She could not believe that this was his only option.

"There's always another way," he said with a faint amused expression on his face. "Somewhere written in some forgotten language in some city lost in lava likely lies buried the secret to having everything I want," he explained, staring at her intently as if to imply that surviving for the sake of his daughter was not the only reason for seeking out an alternative solution. "All at once," he continued, "but, I'm not going to find it today and today is all I have," he acknowledged gravely.

She bit the inside of her cheek discreetly, trying not to let the gravity of the situation overwhelm her. With a sigh, she looked at him reassuringly. "I'm going to convince Ric to let our girls help you out with this because you are being a good father, and you are being a good person, and how could I tell you not to do that when that's all I ever…" she stopped short, not wanting to delve back into the complicated feelings she harboured for Klaus Mikaelson.

It was true though. All she had ever wanted was for Klaus to reform himself – to become the person she knew he was capable of being. It was a selfish desire of hers when she had been younger to assuage her guilt and allow her to envision more with him. Now, it was for the sake of his daughter.

He looked at her hopefully, as if expecting her to continue the confession she had started all those years ago in the woods before she allowed her body to take over where her words had left off.

She sighed with a smile, amused by the irony of the situation, as she leaned over the rail. "Ugh," she relented. "This would be so much easier if you just stayed the big bad wolf," she confessed, the confliction battling inside of her.

A look of understanding crossed his features as he realized that perhaps her feelings still lingered for him as well.

"Just wait here," she instructed him.

As she turned to leave, the heat of his body turned with her, as though he would follow or say all of the unspoken words that had formed the thread of their relationship since its beginning.

* * *

Their daughters were exiting Alaric's office as she arrived, giving her quick greetings before rushing off excitedly towards their awaiting classmates, uttering comments about attending the dance.

She eyed them suspiciously before turning her attention to Alaric, who appeared to be busily typing something on his laptop.

Entering his office tentatively, she contemplated how she would convince Alaric to allow their daughters to participate in Klaus's plan.

"I've decided to let the girls help Klaus," Alaric said nonchalantly, breaking the silence and leaving her stunned in the process. He looked up at her briefly from his computer before returning his attention towards his work.

So much for having to convince Alaric to allow the girls to do the spell; his consent had been the last thing she expected to hear from him.

"What changed?" she questioned hesitantly, thinking back to their earlier heated conversation, unsure of what his response would be. She leaned against the arm of a chair as she awaited his answer.

Alaric released a sigh before closing the lid of his laptop. He stood up and rounded his desk, leaning against the surface as he faced her.

"The existence of the white oak stake," he admitted bluntly. "And when I reminded myself, as you had tried to do earlier, that this was not about helping Klaus Mikaelson," he informed her – his distaste for the hybrid apparent in his tone of voice.

Given Alaric's history with Klaus, she supposed that she couldn't blame Alaric for his unfavourable opinion of him, though she had hoped he would come to see him differently after Hope and his generous donation to the establishment of the Salvatore School.

"It's about helping Hope Mikaelson, who is innocent in all of this, who had the unfortunate luck of being born into the Mikaelson family," Alaric explained, having always had a soft spot for the youngest Mikaelson since she had started attending the school. "It's about teaching our daughters when to use their abilities for a greater purpose."

While it was not exactly the answer she would have liked to hear, she could accept it knowing that it led to the same result.

She nodded understandingly.

"I'll tell Klaus," she said simply, turning on her heel to leave.

"I was wrong about what I said earlier," Alaric confessed apologetically causing her to pause.

She arched a curious eyebrow, waiting for him to elaborate.

"He doesn't cloud your judgment," Alaric corrected, referring to his earlier comment about her relationship with Klaus. "If anything, you've cleared the clouds away from his."

She gave him a small appreciative smile.

Alaric caught her hand before she had a chance to step back from him to leave the room. He clutched it sympathetically. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "I don't understand it, but I know that you care for him and that this can't be easy for you after everything," he acknowledged, subtly referring to her relationship history with men who always seemed to have a higher cause to champion for. And while those causes were noble and said much about the character of the men she chose to give her heart to, the inevitable loneliness that followed their worthy abandonment was never easy to swallow.

She pressed her lips together as she fought the tears that were rising in her eyes.

"Then you will understand why I can't be there tonight to watch him die," she said shakily as she heard her voice accept Klaus's impending death.

Turning away from Alaric, she headed for the door.

"You should be honest with him about your feelings before it's too late and you regret not having the chance," Alaric suggested while she lingered in the doorway.

She didn't look back at him, but she shook her head dismissively to downplay the legitimacy of Alaric's advice and the strength of his observations about her feelings for Klaus.

* * *

Klaus and Elijah had taken Hope into Mystic Falls for dinner as a distraction under the guise of ensuring that she had a proper meal in preparation for her first werewolf transformation. Little did Hope (or Elijah) know that it was more like Klaus's last supper before the dark magic was siphoned out of Hope, placed into him and then finished with a white oak stake. He wanted one last meal with his daughter and the brother who had stood by him all these years.

On the one hand, she felt that Hope and Elijah had a right to know what Klaus's plan was to rid Hope of the dark magic. On the other, she understood Klaus's perspective, and in particular, his desire to keep Hope oblivious so as to prevent her from interfering or upsetting her as she was about to undergo her first werewolf transformation. As a parent herself, she sided with Klaus, for the most part, knowing that she and Alaric could not be ones to judge – they had been keeping the merge from their daughters since their birth.

Elijah – she was less conflicted about. She felt strongly that he should know, after everything the Mikaelson brothers had been through together. She had debated about telling Elijah herself when he had sought her and her daughters out after Hope fainted upon her return to the school earlier that afternoon, but she refrained, trying her best to respect Klaus's wishes.

When she thought back to the Klaus she had first encountered in her high school when he had turned Tyler into a hybrid for his own selfish ends to the Klaus she'd encountered earlier today at the School ready to selflessly sacrifice himself for the sake of his daughter, it was hard to believe that they were the same person.

It saddened her to think about what it would be like for Hope – losing both her mother and father and in such a short time. Hope would blame herself. She could relate, having been through something similar.

And though self-centred – it saddened her to think about what it would be like for her without Klaus. Sure, they had lived their separate lives apart for many years, but she always knew that he would be in her corner when she needed him, and deep down, she always felt that their lives would cross again, and that despite her relationship with Stefan, there was a part of her that had always believed that her story with Klaus had not yet been finished. Perhaps the words he uttered to her at her graduation stuck with her over the years.

While her girls prepped the siphon tonic and rehearsed the spell with Alaric's supervision, she was tasked with keeping tabs on Klaus and Hope as the night drew closer to midnight – when Hope's transformation would begin and the spell would follow.

After she had searched for Klaus and Hope in some of the small restaurants in town, she spotted Klaus through the foggy night, illuminated by the lights coming from the town hall stage. He was observing Hope from a safe distance as she danced with an unfamiliar boy to the soft blues music playing from the band performing.

She approached slowly watching the adoring way in which Klaus looked over Hope as she danced with the boy.

"Don't worry," Klaus sighed. "I'll behave myself," he assured her, as though he knew she was about to make a remark about how he had managed to successfully restrain himself from strangling the boy Hope had set her sights upon.

She smirked, standing with him quietly as they continued to watch Hope.

"Care to dance?" he asked her with a sheepish grin, despite the tragic set of events that were about to unfold. He extended his hand towards her.

She took his hand, justifying it to herself on the basis that it was the simple request of a dying man and who would she be to deny him.

They stayed where they were, apart from the rest of the crowd and from Hope so as not to interrupt her. It was quieter…almost romantic, if it had not been for what was looming over them.

As one of his hands joined with hers, the other slipped delicately around her waist causing her chest to flutter at the sensation. It had been awhile since he'd embraced her and it pained her to know that this would be the last time – their last dance.

"Would you have indulged my request so readily if I had longer to live?" Klaus asked boldly, asking her the question she had just asked herself but covered up with an excuse.

There was no point in trying to fool her or him – she would have eventually accepted even if he had an eternity to live.

"I might have let you chase me around for a few more centuries," she said teasingly. "That was always the fun part anyways," she admitted.

Oh was it ever. There was something to be said for having a centuries old hybrid pining after you. Admittedly, it had always been thrilling to be so desired by him.

He smirked at her guilty admission, as if satisfied that she was so bluntly acknowledging the feelings he stirred within her.

"Thank you for allowing your daughters to be involved in this mess – for trusting me," he said genuinely.

People may have thought she was crazy, but in hindsight, she had begun to trust him early on despite everything that he had done. It was in the way her body relaxed against his when he'd encountered her in the high school trying to escape from Alaric or how she had known deep down that he'd never let her die after he'd tried to do so to prove a point to Tyler.

"Years ago when the girls were really little I was in trouble and I was scared," she began. "I just put the girls in the car and I drove and I ended up in New Orleans looking for you…you weren't there, but the point is I think a part of me has always known that you weren't the villain of my story," she confessed, clarifying her feelings for him with an example – clarification that she should have provided to him all those years ago.

He appeared regretful that he had not been there for her when she had needed him most – regretful that he would not be there for her in the future when she would inevitably need him again.

She glanced away from him as they continued to dance, it hitting her once more that in a few short hours he would no longer be there as she had come to expect.

"I'm sorry, Caroline Forbes," he apologized sincerely for his absence, recapturing her attention. "Salvatore," he added with a playful but seemingly jealous scowl as he looked away from her innocently. He'd obviously noticed her full name written out on her nameplate in her office. "I think Mikaelson would have had a better ring to it," he remarked confidently, knowing he could get away with a comment like that in the circumstances and given his past friendship with her deceased husband. "I think my mate, Stefan, would have agreed," he continued humourously with a shrug causing her to react with a snort of amusement despite her best efforts to maintain a neutral expression.

Klaus's subtle indication that he would have made her his wife one day felt bittersweet. His eyes went from looking up at the night sky to piercing hers once more as he released a long wistful sigh. "Ah, I had big plans for us," he alluded confidently, but with a regretful undertone as his hand, securely around her waist, began to stroke her back tenderly. "We would have seen the world together…everything I had once spoken of to you," he recounted their conversation long ago when he had invited her to the Mikaelson ball held at his former residence in Mystic Falls. "We would have swam in the bluest oceans under hottest sun," he imagined, grazing his finger over her daylight ring, "made love on the softest beaches under the brightest stars," he continued, grinning guiltily as his cheeks reddened, worried that his last comment may have boldly overstepped a boundary or two.

Her eyebrows rose at his description – flattered, embarrassed and sad at the same time. His dreams for them were a brief but welcome reprieve from the reality of their situation.

"Perhaps we would have," she acknowledged with a sincere smile, taking him by a bit by surprise, having not expected her to agree with him – particularly with respect to his last suggestion.

There was no use in denying her feelings now, in keeping with Alaric's advice. She was certain that she and Klaus would have eventually found their way back to one another at some point in the future.

"I suppose that this is karma for all of the horrible things I've done over the centuries; to have you and my daughter like this, in this moment, but for only a moment," Klaus concluded regretfully.

She nodded understandingly. From her perspective, it seemed wholly unfair that she always lost those she loved most eventually.

"I had intended to be your last love," Klaus reminded her apologetically, thinking back to her graduation ceremony. "That never changed after all these years," he said, confirming that his feelings for her had never faltered after all this time.

As she had done plenty of times that day, she chewed the inside of her lip to suppress tears that were eager to fall.

"But, it looks like you'll be mine instead," he acknowledged to her softly, his voice cracking with his realization.

She stopped their dance, staring at him longingly as his confession hit her deeply. And though it took everything to fight the sadness inside of her, she smiled at him genuinely, and without hesitation, she found her lips pressed to his in a kiss that was as much an affirmation of their feelings for one another as it was a goodbye.

His lips felt familiar and he consumed her in the way he had all those years ago. This felt like a dream that she did not want to wake up from.

The dream ended quickly enough with the complaint of the clock tower sounding and startling them both. It signalled the beginning of Hope's transformation was drawing closer. She recoiled at the interruption, but Klaus's hands both now framing the sides of her face held her in place. He didn't want to let her go.

Even when their lips parted, they remained close, their foreheads still touching and their short breaths dancing on each other's skin.

"I...I think we need to get back to the school. It's time," she said regretfully, pulling away self-consciously as she looked around to ensure their moment had not been observed. Klaus did the same.

Hope was still happily engaged in conversation and dance with the same boy, completely oblivious to her father's mild indiscretion with her headmistress.

"We'll be right behind you," he assured her, as he continued to focus his attention upon his daughter.

She looked at him with concern, worried that he might be second guessing his plan and trying to come up with an alternative at the last minute.

"She can have the next five minutes dancing," he explained.

His preference to watch Hope from a distance when he only had a few short hours left to live baffled her.

"I don't get it. Aren't there a million things that you want to say to her? About life, dating, or how to file tax returns? I don't know?" she questioned, dissatisfied with the way he was handling his impending death insofar as his daughter was concerned.

"She'll figure it out," Klaus replied confidently. "What I want to do is stand here, and watch my daughter dance with a townie – to see her happy," he sighed.

Even in his last moments, he continued to frustrate her.

"Say goodbye to your daughter, Klaus. Give her real closure," she encouraged.

Klaus shrugged dismissively. "Closure is a myth."

She scoffed.

"Look, what you're doing is noble, Klaus, but if you don't say goodbye, if...if you leave Hope with questions and pain and anger, you'll haunt her. And I don't think that's your endgame," she said sternly, hoping he would change his perspective before it would be too late.

He shrugged, looking to her helplessly, his eyes now glassy with tears. "I don't know how to say goodbye," he admitted.

Seeing his pain, knowing how difficult it was to say goodbye, feeling the same way about saying goodbye to him brought back the tears she had been fighting so well up until now.

"Try this," she said, looking down at his hand and taking it into hers lightly. "One of you walks away, but doesn't turn back," she paused with the fracture of her voice, her emotions getting the better of her as she knew that she was coaching herself on how to say goodbye to him, just as much as she was advising him on how to say goodbye to his daughter. "You don't turn back even if your heart aches for just one more look, one more moment. But you'll know that the not looking just means…" she stopped with a lingering sigh as he looked at her to continue. "I'll never forget you," she finished, a tear rolling down her cheek as she squeezed his hand gently before releasing it.

In that moment, he too seemed to realize that her advice about saying goodbye was as much for her as it was for him and that she was saying goodbye to him.

His features appeared to convey every emotion he ever had for her all once as he searched for the right words to say. That was the problem – there was still so much left to be said between them, but not enough time in which to say it. Resigning himself to the fact that her approach to goodbye would need to suffice, he gave her a small nod of understanding – permission for her to be the one to walk away, confirmation that he, too, would never forget her.

* * *

Once she was sure she was out of earshot, unable to be detected by Klaus's hybrid hearing, she breathed a sigh of relief as she allowed her tears to flow freely down her cheeks.

She would have preferred to wait to cry until she was behind closed doors, but the muscles in her face burned from the effort she had to exert to hold back the tears she needed to shed and she couldn't wait any longer. Fortunately, it was dark enough that she was able to walk down the pathway towards the street without attracting any sympathetic attention from anyone who was still milling about downtown.

Stopping to regain her bearings and her composure, she collapsed onto a bench off the sidewalk across the street from the Mystic Grill.

As soon as she sat down, the irony donned on her and she burst into a combination of laughter and more tears. Someone was playing a cruel joke on her.

She and Klaus had sat here on this very bench almost two decades ago after he'd nearly gotten himself hit by a car chasing after her as she lured him out of the Grill – playing his decoy as part of one of her friends' master plans to bring the Originals down.

He was relentless in his pursuit despite her rebuffing him at every turn.

"_I want to talk about you…your hopes…your dreams…everything you want in life," _he had recited as if he had pulled that line straight out of one of her mother's romance novels that she had immersed herself in when she was younger.

As she reminisced about that encounter, she laughed and she cried, thinking about how much time had been wasted by playing childish games and focusing on her friends' objectives rather than her own.

If only she could go back to that night with him on the bench knowing what she knows now, she thought as she glanced up at the night sky.

She was startled by a masculine throat clearing and a black silk handkerchief being extended in front of her.

"Mind if I join you?" Elijah's familiar accented voice said from in front of her.

Looking up, she saw him standing over her, a look of curious concern spread across his features.

Taking the handkerchief, she shrugged and shifted to the right edge of the bench to allow him space to sit beside her.

"My apologies," he said as he seated himself. "It's rather impolite of me to interrupt when you appear to be having such a personal moment," he acknowledged as she dried her eyes.

"It's fine," she said, trying her best to collect herself in front of Klaus's brother, sensing that his appearance here was more than just a coincidence.

"Having regard to my ill-mannered interruption, there's no need for feigned polite responses, Ms. Forbes," Elijah mused. "Salvatore," he added, much in the way Klaus had earlier. It seemed that all the Mikaelson's had difficulty with her surname. "I simply ask for your honesty," he requested.

"Caroline," she corrected meekly, hating the formality with which he addressed her as though he was a student of her school.

Elijah softened.

"Caroline, Niklaus upset you – When I came across you both in the square just now, I couldn't help but notice how saddened you looked while walking away from him. Tell me, what has you here laughing and crying with so much vigor? What is my brother planning?" he wondered hesitantly, the worry evident by the way he asked the question.

Her suspicions about Elijah's intentions proved correct as she contemplated how to answer his questions. In an effort to buy herself some time to decide, she chose to divert the subject somewhat.

"What do you know of my relationship with Klaus?" she queried, curious to know what Klaus's older brother had come to know of her given their limited interaction while he had resided here in Mystic Falls.

Elijah considered her question thoughtfully, though subtly irritated by her effort to avoid his question.

"What I've heard of your relationship with Niklaus has been mostly pierced together through hearsay from my siblings and others," Elijah admitted.

"Klaus never spoke of me to you?" she wondered, a bit offended that she had not come up in conversation since his departure from Mystic Falls considering how much he claimed she had meant to him and how close he was with Elijah.

Elijah shook his head, noting her look of dismay. "That doesn't mean anything insofar as Niklaus's feelings for you are concerned, Caroline, I assure you. My brother has never been one to kiss and tell. Those he keeps close to his heart are those he tends to care the most for. As you know, we aren't exactly the most loved family in the supernatural universe. It's how he keeps those he loves safe," he explained.

She found his answer reassuring and she leaned back against the bench with a sigh.

"While I'm not one for gossip, rumour has it that you're the reason why Niklaus ended his vendetta against the Lockwood boy and why he forewent the opportunity to observe Katerina in her final moments of life despite centuries of him relentlessly trying to end her. When New Orleans was in the midst of chaos, my brother returned to Mystic Falls at your behest and I understand that he saved Stefan Salvatore, your departed husband, from the wrath of Rayna Cruz despite the fact that Stefan led her into our City and potentially put our family and friends in grave danger all for your sake," Elijah recounted.

She nodded as she thought about all of the-out-of-character things that the infamous Klaus Mikaelson had done out of adoration for her. He'd spared Tyler on numerous occasions, saved Stefan, saved her, buried twelve witches, killed twelve resurrected vengeful witches, and more, all for her without the expectation of anything in return. Well, save for the time he had agreed to let Katherine die in peace in exchange for her confession in the woods. He had gotten a lot more than he'd bargained for on that particular occasion.

"When insisting that I come with him to Mystic Falls today, Niklaus professed that I was the only one he trusted. However, it's apparent that his statement was either incomplete, or, an outright lie, as he seems to trust you with equal measure," Elijah noted observantly. "It's why he enrolled Hope at this school and why we returned to Mystic Falls with her today – he trusts you with his daughter's life as he does me, and so with all of this said, I can only conclude that his affections for you run quite deep and that you mean a great deal to him," Elijah concluded sincerely.

Despite her best efforts, fresh tears began to soak the handkerchief Elijah had given to her.

"He tried to seduce me on this bench nearly two decades ago," she chuckled through her tears. "And I rejected him."

Elijah laughed in amusement, taking a brief moment to revel in his brother's lighthearted misfortune. "Niklaus has never been subtle when it came to the art of seduction – he has always been rather blunt about what he wants, which doesn't always translate well romantically. I can only imagine your rejection of his advances enamoured him to you even more," he elaborated. "I suppose that explains your laughter in this moment, but I'm still unsure as to the cause of your tears," Elijah wondered, a serious undertone apparent with his remark. "My brother's tactics to woo you couldn't have been that insufferable," Elijah mused.

She laughed at Elijah's final comment, made at the expense of his brother, but quickly frowned as she debated about what to tell him of Klaus's plans. She didn't want to betray Klaus's confidence, but she needed to talk to someone who could understand her perspective and who may be able to help. She was desperate and felt like she had no other choice.

"I fell for your brother a long time ago, but it's taken me until now to acknowledge that. For a long time, I denied how I truly felt about him. My feelings felt like a betrayal of my friends after everything he had done to hurt them and to hurt me. I worried what my feelings said about me. I couldn't understand how despite every terrible thing he had done, I still cared for him," she shrugged, feeling frustrated with herself, at times wishing that she had never crossed paths with Klaus Mikaelson to begin with.

"I've have endured your struggle for centuries, Caroline, insofar as Niklaus is concerned," Elijah empathized with her. "What I've come to realize, as I'm sure you have, is that good and bad is not so black and white, and nor is love and hate. We should not feel guilty for our affections for Niklaus – it's not a crime to love what you cannot explain," he continued, touching upon the very same sentiment Klaus had expressed to her over the phone once before when the girls were first born. "None of us are without fault, and while I can't excuse the awful things my brother has done over the years, he's never done them out of pure evil intent. He cares and he loves and it's the glimmer of humanity in him that's always given me hope and the resolve to stand by him, knowing that he's capable of redemption," he proclaimed, his words resonating with her loudly, reminding her of similar words she had spoken to Klaus at the Gilbert house as she lay dying in front of him from his lethal werewolf bite.

"What if Klaus's redemption comes with the ultimate price?" she wondered aloud, garnering a quizzical look from Elijah.

"The cause of your tears," Elijah inferred, surmising that this conversation would eventually come full circle.

She nodded.

"My girls aren't just siphoning the dark magic from Hope, leaving it to be disposed of once we come up with a plan," she suggested, falling quiet for a moment, giving Elijah an opportunity to process her words.

Elijah's eyebrows furrowed as he began to sew the pieces together himself.

"Niklaus is going to have the dark magic transferred into him, isn't he?" Elijah concluded. "And then what?" he wondered apprehensively, staring away from her and into the darkness. "He can't consume that dark magic without destroying himself or the rest of us in the process," he said knowingly.

She nodded, hoping he could fill in the blanks without her having to do it for him.

"He would never want to put his family in harm's way, but he's immortal…there is no way to…" a horrified look of realization appeared on Elijah's face as he spoke. "Unless he somehow possesses more white oak," he reasoned, staring at her seriously.

"Apparently he saved one stake after all these years for such an occasion," she revealed with a sarcastic and bitter tone.

Elijah's eyes wandered in front of them frantically as if searching for another way while his hand reached out and griped hers – an expression of the desperation she felt.

"I did not stand by my brother's side all these centuries to watch his redemption be wasted. Hope deserves to have her father. You deserve to know the Niklaus that I know," Elijah spoke bitterly. "If my brother's redemption requires the ultimate price, then I assure you that it will not be Niklaus who will pay," he declared decidedly.

She was about to speak in protest as Elijah turned back to her, eager to discourage the elder Mikaelson sibling from making any impulsive decisions that may not be reversible and which she might be blamed for, considering the information she just shared with him, but Elijah cut her off before she had the opportunity.

"I hope you'll forgive me, Caroline, and perhaps you will when Niklaus is still here tomorrow, but you cannot be involved in this anymore than is necessary. We both know that my brother has an impeccable way of misdirecting his, typically, unwarranted anger, and none of his indignation, after what I'm about to do, should be placed upon you," Elijah said adamantly.

And before she realized what Elijah was about to do to ensure that she would not be implicated or interfere in his decision any more than she had to be, everything went black.

* * *

When she came to, she found herself on the wet grassy ground behind a bush near the bench where she had been conversing with Elijah. He'd obviously placed her here so that passersby would not notice her unconscious and cause her more trouble. She supposed she should at least thank Elijah for his consideration and foresight in that regard.

As everything that was about to transpire flooded back to the forefront of her mind, she scrambled to stand, glancing across the town square towards where the band had been playing and Klaus had last stood watching Hope.

The band was nearly finished packing up their instruments and equipment and the small group of remaining spectators were departing in various directions to wherever they were headed to next. Of course, none of the remaining spectators consisted of Klaus or Hope.

Scanning the town square in a panic, she noticed the large clock above the tower of the police station. Midnight was drawing closer and she was running out of time to get back to the school.

At this point, driving her car back to the school would only eat up precious time she didn't have, and so once she was sure she was shielded by darkness and out of sight she used what she could muster of her supernatural capabilities to fast forward her return to the school, despite being low on blood and her magical energies having previously been used to repair her snapped neck and bring her back to life.

By the time she made it back to the school and into the forested perimeter towards the old mill structure on the property, her knees were practically touching the ground, almost too weak to stand to push herself forwards to where she could see light and hear her daughters beginning the recitation of the siphoning spell.

She stopped briefly, pulling herself up straight with the help of a thick tree branch, struggling to catch her breath. She needed blood, but she needed to get to her girls and Klaus more so – if it wasn't already too late.

As she was about to lunge forward to try and sprint the final stretch to the old mill, the sound of the crackling brush behind her sent a chill down her spine and she froze.

Looking over her shoulder, she was confronted by the amber eyes and sharp teeth of a young white wolf gazing at her predatorily.

"Hope," she uttered hesitantly, sensing – hoping – that the young wolf was Klaus's daughter. It couldn't have been anyone else but her. The grounds were fenced and the other wolf pupils of the school would have been secure in their transformation facility as they had always been on each full moon. After seeing Klaus's disappointed reaction to the small cell-like structures they had specially constructed for their werewolf students, she knew that Klaus would have wanted his daughter to roam free for her first transformation – as had been the way since the creation of werewolves.

The white wolf bared its teeth wider as a low growl rumbled from its chest causing her to tremble in fear in the face of her traditional enemy on the night of a full moon.

"It's me, Caroline," she muttered shakily, hoping that her words might get through to Hope inside of the werewolf body.

Having been through Tyler's early transformation years ago, and having securely observed the early transformations of her students more recently, she should have known that trying to communicate with the wolf – particularly a young one unfamiliar with the transition and their wolf form – was of no use. When transformed, werewolves were at the mercy of their natural instincts and even the oldest wolves had little control.

The werewolf growled louder, nearly to the point of barking as they lowered themselves to the ground, their front claws digging into the soil, as if preparing to give chase.

She released an exhausted groan, knowing she had no choice but to use what strength she had left to try and outrun the wolf make it to the mill where the spell was beginning – as much to save herself now.

Sucking in her breath, she launched herself from the tree and darted towards the clearing.

She made it to the edge of the tree line to see her girls facing one another on the outside of the circle, reciting the spell and holding the blue light of the dark magic above them, with Alaric observing worriedly, and while Klaus fervently awaited the Latin cue to enter the circle and have the magic transferred into him.

What the four of them did not see was Elijah standing to the side, covered by the darkness, also awaiting his own cue to sabotage Klaus's plan to sacrifice himself.

Before she could go any further, the wind was knocked out of her as she was pushed face first against the ground by four strong werewolf paws, its claws digging into her back. She cried out as she felt the wolf's teeth rip through her jacket and pierce her shoulder blade.

"Klaus!" she cried out as her girls chanted the magic words he'd been waiting to hear.

With her plea for help doubling as a warning, she saw Klaus's attention turn towards her before her vision went hazy as she struggled to fend off the white wolf from its attack.

In seconds that felt like minutes, the attack stopped and she could hear whimpering and growling from what sounded like multiple wolves.

Opening her eyes, she tensed at the sight of the furry underbelly of a mixed-coloured wolf standing sideways overtop of her torso, its attention turned away from her, growling at her feet. Dragging herself out from underneath, her fingernails buried in dirt, the wolf that had been over top of her was staring down the white wolf that had attacked her.

"Elijah, what the hell are you doing?!" she heard Alaric shout from the circle before she heard Elijah release a boisterous bellow of pain.

She rolled herself over to look towards the circle, seeing Elijah consumed by the electric blue light.

Disregarding her now, both wolves leaped over her towards the circle, but found themselves blocked from entering by an invisible barricade. They barked and whimpered in response, until the blue light quickly disappeared within Elijah and the barrier was dropped.

She heard Alaric yell after their daughters to come to him, obviously fearful for their safety being in the direct presence of two werewolves and an original vampire now consumed by dark magic.

And with that, everything went dark for the second time that evening.

* * *

**A/N: Sooooo...what did you think? **

**Part II will be coming eventually and will very loosely resemble episode 5x13. I have a general plan, but I always consider your thoughts and so I'm curious to know what you would like to see in the second part! **

**On an unrelated note, I am working on a sort of epilogue to Tangled Up In Blue, offering a glimpse into Klaus and Caroline's life in New York up to their wedding. The first chapter is a bit of a beast, however, and so I'm not sure when it will be completed. Keep an eye out. **

**Thank you for reading! **


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: So, I'm back with an update! Sorry for the wait! **

**As usual, I've written more than I expected, so this is going to be more like a three or four parter. **

**I have to say thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed! It's a relief to know there are still dedicated klaroliners out there who still want to read my writing.**

* * *

"I see Kaleb grabbed you a change of clothes from the lost and found," Alaric noticed with an amused snort as he observed his clothing – grey sweatpants and a black sweater with the Salvatore crest on the chest – not his normal choice of attire to wear in public.

"He's a brave vampire," he said of the student who had vamped to the site of the mill on a full moon as he crossed the threshold into Alaric's office slowly.

He and Alaric had a tentative relationship at best. Their history was complicated – rife with efforts to put an end one another – it was only through Hope and Caroline that they remained reluctantly connected now. He knew that Alaric would always harbour a level of hatred for him underneath the feigned niceties he put forward for the sake of their daughters, and he supposed that he couldn't blame him for his feelings. From his perspective, he supposed he would always harbour a level of mistrust of the human and self-proclaimed vampire-hunter who had tried to kill him on numerous occasions. Despite that, and ironically, there was a sincerity about him that assured him that his daughter would always be safe at this school.

Alaric was standing pensively by the fireplace, which was lighting the room with the help of a few dimly glowing lamps.

"Well, I needed someone with speed to bring Caroline back to the school while you dealt with Hope and Elijah," Alaric explained, reaching for his empty glass tumbler from atop the mantel.

Alaric moved to his desk and retrieved a second glass and a liquor bottle from one of the bottom drawers.

He raised his eyebrows curiously while Alaric filled both glasses. He was surprised that Alaric would offer him a glass.

"When you have teenaged students you have to keep this stuff under lock and key…and spell," Alaric explained, referring to the school's student witches.

At first, he smirked at the thought of Alaric having to manage dozens of intoxicated supernatural teenagers, but with Hope a student at the school, he was appreciative that Alaric had taken such precautions. He'd been a real teenager so long ago that he'd forgotten how mischievous they could be. It'd prompted him to consider whether he'd been too trusting of Hope and whether better measures would need to be taken back home in New Orleans to ensure that his most prized liquor was protected from being squandered away as a mix of choice at some teenage party.

Alaric rounded back from the desk and handed him a glass, which he accepted readily. It had been a long day and smooth taste of the bourbon was a welcome reprieve from what was about to come.

"How is Elijah?" Alaric asked curiously.

"He should be secure for the time being with the aid of the sleeping spell Hope did before she took off," he informed Alaric. He had placed Elijah in another one of the school's basement cells to keep him contained until he was ready to depart for New Orleans. In the interim, he'd enlisted Freya and her connections to the Quarter witches to scour their grimoires for any way to rid Elijah of the dark magic.

"Let's hope so - the cell he busted out of earlier won't be an easy fix and if he breaks out of another one this time he'll be full of dark magic in a school full of kids," Alaric commented, his tone of voice laced with bitterness and judgment as he tipped his glass towards him sarcastically before taking a generous sip.

"Well, perhaps if you hadn't put Caroline up to telling Elijah, we wouldn't be in this predicament," he pointed out, equally as bitter, mimicking Alaric's gesture with the glass before taking a sip of his own.

"What are you talking about?" Alaric glared at him questioningly.

"Oh come on. Caroline as my little distraction was the go-to trick years ago. Surely you haven't learnt any new tactics," he said flatly with a shrug. If anyone was pathetic, it was him, however, as he continued to fall for it.

Alaric scoffed, placing his glass back on the mantel, before turning to face him directly. "Clearly you have a selective memory when it comes to the past. You took over my body, sacrificed my girlfriend to break your curse and did a hell of a lot more to the people that I care about. Why would I try to sabotage your plan to sacrifice yourself?" he shot back, denying any involvement in the unexpected turn the night had taken.

He considered Alaric's words carefully. His accusation may have been premature. Alaric had wanted him dead in the past, and there was no reason for him to believe that his feelings had changed despite all that had happened over the last decade insofar as his daughter was concerned.

"Perhaps you were after a different kind of revenge – one where you could revel in me enduring the pain of my brother's loss and the scorn of my daughter," he suggested.

While he often dealt swift revenge to those who would dare cross him, he reserved the more tortuous forms of revenge for those who he especially despised; perhaps Alaric was no different.

Alaric seemed angered by his comment. "Let's be clear, my involvement in any of this has nothing to do with any personal animosity I might have towards you. I wouldn't put my daughters in jeopardy, exposing them to more magic with the merge looming in the not-so-distant future, for the sake of my own vendetta," he stated firmly.

Quiet, he looked away guiltily at his suggestion. As a father himself, he could understand Alaric's position. He knew exposing the twins to stronger magic could influence their impending merge and so Caroline and Alaric's choice to allow them to siphon the dark magic from Hope was not a decision either of them had made lightly.

"Did it ever dawn on you that maybe, after seeing so many people she cares for sacrifice themselves in spite of her that for once, Caroline did one impulsive and selfish thing in her life for herself and for Hope by intervening and saving your sorry ass?" Alaric countered.

Caroline had always put herself before everyone. It was part of what he admired about her. Though, even she wasn't entirely selfless and it was possible that Alaric had a point. Perhaps after everything Caroline had been through and lost, she was taking a stand. The possibility that she was taking a stand for him was equally frightening as it was exciting. While it was all he ever wanted, it came with a weight of expectation. Perhaps he had his answer as to whether she would let him go through with his sacrifice.

"I would have supported Caroline if she needed to consume the dark magic for one of your daughters," he replied quickly in an attempt to dismiss Alaric's suggestion. Caroline had been so sincere in her willingness to help him earlier that day.

Alaric snorted in disbelief at his comment causing him to arch his eyebrow in response, surprised by his blunt reaction to his comment.

"Bullshit – you carted your family around in coffins for centuries. You know damn well that you would have done the same as Caroline if the roles were reversed. Hell, if the shoe was on the other foot you would have pushed me into the circle in her place and killed me yourself just to stop her," Alaric said bluntly.

"Well…" he started to protest.

Alaric glared at him incredulously.

"I suppose you're not wrong," he admitted, hiding his guilty expression behind the rim of his liquor glass as he sipped, knowing that there was no point in trying to dispute Alaric's suggestion.

Alaric was right. If the dark magic had afflicted one of Caroline's daughters and she had chosen to sacrifice herself, he would have sought out every opportunity to spare her – inclusive of forcing Alaric to take her place if it was possible, regardless of how much Caroline might have hated him for it afterwards.

"Caroline didn't push Elijah into the circle tonight," Alaric pointed out, coming to Caroline's defence. "So, before you take any of your frustration out on her, remember that Elijah walked into that circle and consumed the dark magic willingly."

Indeed, Caroline had not forced Elijah to consume the dark magic, regardless of her involvement in his intervention. She wouldn't have been strong enough to force Elijah, even if she had tried. Elijah had made the choice to consume the dark magic on his own and without coercion.

"It is possible that Elijah caught on to your plans on his own?" Alaric proposed.

He shook his head.

"Elijah was oblivious as to my plans until Hope and I returned to the school and he tried to stop me. Caroline was in town with us and then she showed up at the mill just before Elijah consumed the dark magic. It's too much of a coincidence," he concluded, knowing that Caroline had somehow been involved.

"And Caroline knew nothing of your plans to let Hope run free in the woods for her first werewolf transformation – no one did, by the way," Alaric interjected, the frustration in his voice indicating that he was not just upset about the danger he had inadvertently put Caroline in, but the students at the school who were not immune to werewolf venom. "Caroline wouldn't have put herself at risk like that all for the sake of distracting you," Alaric replied quickly.

"Perhaps," he thought.

"Perhaps? You don't have the luxury of being the reckless hero when you're a parent, Klaus. Our daughters need us. Hope needs you. Elijah has given you an amazing opportunity…a second chance to be the father you started out to be," Alaric told him sternly.

He eyed Alaric suspiciously.

"What kind of parent allows another man to die for his child?" he retorted. It seemed cowardly that he could just allow Elijah to make the ultimate sacrifice for his daughter in his place.

Alaric shrugged effortlessly. "The kind who loves her…who wants to spare her the pain of losing both parents so young…the kind who puts her needs and wants before his own ego," he argued back.

The pain in Hope's eyes as they put Hayley to rest caused Alaric's response to sting him unexpectedly.

"I love Hope," he affirmed, unbothered by admitting that to Alaric, though it was his most significant vulnerability. "But it's the way of the world," he started almost dismissively, "children bury their parents, it happens every day and every hour."

He'd lived throughout a lengthy period in history where the life expectancy of humans was not nearly as long as it was today and illness ran rampant. Death was commonplace.

"Yes, it does," Alaric agreed. "But, Hope loves you, too."

He mused at Alaric's apparent change in opinion about his survival. "You were all too happy to help me succeed in my suicide mission earlier today…you just said as much yourself. Why the sudden change of heart?" he wondered suspiciously. "You, more than most, know that I haven't lived an honourable life, but doing this, taking the darkness into myself so that no one else is afflicted by it would be an honourable death," he pointed out, as though trying to convince Alaric to revert back to his earlier position, as if that would in some way help matters now.

Alaric scoffed, a disbelieving smile crossing his features as he shook his head disappointedly in response to his comments. He glanced into the fire as he considered his next words.

"Hope just lost Hayley. She just got you back. Elijah's willing sacrifice has given you another way…it might not be a fast track to father of the year and it will be a lot of work – teenage girls can be brutal," Alaric paused with a scowl, obviously having first-hand experience with the species.

He smirked slightly, relating to Alaric's comment, knowing how insufferable Hope could be at times.

"This way ensures that Hope will have one of her parents in her life a while longer," Alaric explained. "And despite everything you have done to me, and though you may not deserve to have Hope, Hope deserves to have her father."

He nodded, accepting the sincerity of Alaric's comment. While the two of them may not have cared for one another, Alaric had taken his daughter into his school – as Caroline had done – and treated her as he would have any other student, despite who her father was.

"At this particular moment in time, I don't think Hope much cares to have me as her father," he admitted with a sigh, recalling to himself how Hope had thoroughly berated him and Elijah at the mill before knocking Elijah out with the sleep spell to stop him from implementing the final step in the plan. "She took off before I could talk to her."

"I don't think that's true," Alaric said of his comment about Hope's desire – or lack thereof – to have him as a father. "Hope's currently in the library with Dorian pulling anything she can to help Elijah," he informed him. "She's just upset and she's scared. She doesn't want to lose you or Elijah. She loves you both."

His mind eased at Alaric's revelation – reassured by the fact that while his daughter may have been angry with him for not telling her of his true plans to rid her of the dark magic she still seemingly cared about both him and Elijah.

"You know," Alaric started, staring down into the flames of the fire before looking back up at him. "Deep down, Caroline loves you too. I think a part of her has since your time in Mystic Falls. She saw something in you that none of us did," he revealed. "If Caroline was involved in Elijah finding out about your plans, it's because she loves you."

He felt conflicted about Caroline's involvement in Elijah interfering in his plans. On the one hand, this unexpected turn of events meant that he might lose his brother forever and the prospect of not having his unwavering support terrified him. On the other hand, all he ever wanted, as far as Caroline was concerned, was for his feelings to be reciprocated, and Elijah's sacrifice was a way for him have Caroline in his life in the way he had always wanted.

"Where is she…Caroline?" he asked Alaric, his mind turning to Caroline and her current state – suffering from a werewolf bite his daughter had inflicted. He hated to leave Caroline in pain, but he had needed to ensure Elijah was subdued first before he could focus his attention upon her.

"She's upstairs in her room in the faculty wing. Emma is with her trying to help her minimize the effects of the bite, but she's not doing well. She's barely conscious. The bite is affecting her quickly," Alaric revealed.

He sighed as he polished off the remainder of his drink, setting the empty glass down on Alaric's desk. Caroline's quick decline was likely the result of her past exposure to the werewolf venom, he thought to himself guiltily, recalling his regretful involvement in those prior occasions.

"Look, I know that you may have a lot of mixed feelings right now when it comes to Caroline, but my girls are worried sick about their mom…" Alaric started, "and after everything they did for you today, giving Caroline your blood is the least that you could do for them."

* * *

He pushed through the partially open door to Caroline's room quietly. It too was lit by softly glowing lamps and the flame from a stone-framed fireplace.

For the briefest of moments he admired the soft feminine features Caroline had installed in the room to set-off against the harsh masculine solid wood paneling of the tudor-styled rooms. If the design finishes didn't confirm that this was Caroline's room, the scent of fresh flowers, berries and vanilla certainly did.

The sound of Caroline's hoarse cough urged his attention upon Caroline herself.

On a chaise, in front of the fire, wrapped in a blanket and barely conscious was Caroline. Her back was exposed as Emma wiped a wet cloth over her wound, triggering whimpers of pain from Caroline. Knowing that Emma was a witch, he suspected that the cloth was soaked with spelled with herbs of some kind.

"You'll be okay," Emma spoke to her soothingly.

His chest tightened. While it hurt him to see her in such a horrible state, he also felt immense relief at the sight of her, having believed that their earlier moments in the town square that evening would be their last ones.

Caroline's normally golden hair was dull and damp from sweat and her body appeared to be shaking from fever.

Every werewolf bite that Caroline had endured at been his fault, he thought remorsefully. The first bite, he had put Tyler up to, the second, he himself had inflicted, and the third, well, he had indirectly caused by setting Hope free for her first werewolf transformation. Perhaps his choice in that regard was irresponsible, but he'd been focused on what was best for his daughter, not anticipating that any vampires would be roaming the woods on the school grounds under a full moon.

The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like Caroline's sudden appearance in the clearing at the last moment may have been unplanned – a split second decision Caroline had undertaken, but why? He wondered to himself.

"Where am I?" he heard her ask Emma, clearly disoriented, a hint that the hallucinations and delusions might be starting to set in. "Where is Klaus? Did Tyler kill him? Klaus's blood," she murmured almost incoherently as Emma tried to reassure her. Indeed, she was spiralling quickly and it would only be a matter of time before she began to pose a threat to Emma and the students of the school – particularly the ones with human blood in their veins.

He cleared his throat to announce his presence.

Emma glanced at him in the doorway and Caroline's eyes fluttered open at the sound of his interruption.

"Klaus," Caroline mumbled, a sense of panic seeming to hit her as she tried to force herself up from the chaise.

Emma tried to intervene, placing her hands on Caroline's shoulders to discourage her from getting up. Disregarding Emma's hesitation, Caroline rose stubbornly with her blanket in hand, standing shakily with the support of Emma's hand, who stood beside her cautiously.

He observed her dishevelled state regretfully.

"You're here, you're okay," Caroline spoke hoarsely, though her relief evident.

"I'm here sweetheart," he affirmed, taking a few tentative steps into the room.

Emma exchanged unsure looks between them both before nodding towards him. "I'm going to go check on Josie and Lizzie to see how they're doing," she explained.

While Emma was not a siphoner witch like Caroline's daughters were, she was still a witch with plenty of experience, and an effective guidance counsellor, inasmuch as he had gleaned from Hope, Hayley, and his own monitoring of the school.

Setting the bowl of spelled herbs and cloth on the side table beside the chaise, Emma moved towards him and the door warily, eyeing him suspiciously. He was sure his sordid history preceded him and his current presence at the school had left much to be desired.

"Take care of her," Emma instructed him sternly, almost as a subtle warning or threat.

He acknowledged Emma briefly with a nod, his eyes following her over his shoulder as she exited the room and closed the door behind her, leaving him alone with Caroline.

"Klaus," Caroline said, barely as a whisper, seemingly defeated and exhausted from the night's events. Her legs began to buckle underneath her and she likely would have collapsed had he not acted on his reflexes and flashed towards her to break her fall.

"I'm here, I've got you, love," he told her as he scooped her up protectively, guiding her back to her position on the chaise, though this time he had curled her in his lap with his arms wrapped around her, hoping that his embrace, coupled with the blanket and the fire would warm her enough to stop her from shaking.

This is not how he had imagined the day unfolding when he'd first arrived at the school this morning. He certainly had not expected that Caroline would be sat upon his lap trembling from his daughter's werewolf venom.

He fully anticipated Caroline to have a brief moment of clarity through the haze the venom had created to rebuff him, but instead, he found her relaxing against his torso, her head resting in the crook of his neck against his shoulder.

"Klaus…I've been looking everywhere for you," she huffed, as though she was out of breath, her eyes closed. "Rayna Cruz…What happened?"

The hallucinations and delusions were definitely running their course.

"Shhh…" he said, tucking a loose strand of hair away from her face before his fingertips traced down the side of her neck to her back, inspecting the wound his daughter had caused. "You need to heal, you need my blood," he told her, not disputing her interpretation of reality in an effort to keep her calm.

He could see her veins pop around her eyes, obviously sensing the antidote that was coursing through his body so close to her lips.

Caroline looked up at him unsure, seeking permission to feed from him and he gave her a slight nod of his head. Her hand curled around his neck, drawing him closer to her distended fangs.

She pierced his neck and he gasped under his breath. Despite the circumstances, warmth spread through him, and a euphoric feeling stirred in his chest, distracting him from the fact that her fangs were buried in his flesh.

He cradled her as she fed from him, his one hand stroking her hair to hold it back as she fed, while his other drew circles absently on the skin of her upper arm. Perhaps his embrace was bold, but he needed to hold her and based upon how her body relaxed into his, she didn't seem to mind.

He released a subtle satisfied sigh. In the proper circumstances, with the right intentions – or wrong intentions (depending on how you looked at it) – blood sharing could be very intimate, he knew. Perhaps this is why these moments always felt so intense and overwhelming for him whenever Caroline fed from him.

It didn't help matters that her lips were pressed against his neck, her mouth sucking his skin – as though they were back in the woods all those years ago.

When she was sated from his blood, she pulled back from his neck, seemingly stopping herself from instinctively licking the two droplets of blood that he could feel at the base of his neck from the puncture wounds she'd inflicted on him that were already beginning to heal.

She released a muddled laugh from under her breath which startled him and took him by surprise. Her eyes fluttered as she floated in and out of consciousness as her face contorted into a disgusted but curious expression. "Why do you smell like you bathed in Axe body spray and sweat?" she wondered randomly.

He chuckled briefly in response, as he discreetly took in the scent of the borrowed clothing he was wearing. Of course, they would smell of hormonal teenage boy.

Her muscles tensed against him as her eyes shot open, seemingly more aware as his blood began to work its magic.

"What did you do to Tyler?" she demanded anxiously, suddenly appearing frightened, the delusions still clearly wearing their final course before she was completely healed.

He pushed down a smirk in response to the apparent insult she had made of the personal hygiene habits of Tyler Lockwood. While he may have found it amusing, Caroline's delusions had led her to believing that the past was very real and in those delusions he was, at times, very much her enemy still. He didn't want to scare her or overwhelm her with too much information.

As she tried to climb out of his lap, he gently but firmly tightened his grip around her waist.

"Sweetheart, it's okay. You're safe. It's 2026. We're at the Salvatore School," he informed her, allowing her a moment to process as she glanced around the room. The tension in her body began to ease as she appeared to recognize her surroundings, though the puzzled expression on her features told him that she was still confused, nonetheless.

"Your daughters, Elizabeth and Josette performed a spell to help my daughter, Hope," he continued, hoping her memory would fall back into place.

She reached over her shoulder to where the werewolf bite had been, searching for an explanation, obviously still under the belief that he had been the cause of it.

"You were caught in the crossfire, bitten by Hope when she was in her werewolf form," he reminded her.

"I don't…understand," she struggled groggily, her eyes clenching shut as she tried to make sense of two competing realities – the one that was in front of her and the one that was in her mind. She was growing frustrated, sensing that her memory was amiss but she couldn't put her finger on it.

He gave her a sympathetic look.

"You're still disoriented from the werewolf venom," he told her. "You need to rest and let my blood heal you so that everything will become clear again."

She was unsatisfied by his response, but seemed to understand it nonetheless, knowing that her confusion stemmed from the venom and that once it had left her system the reality of things would become clear to her.

"Let me help you to bed," he suggested, shuffling out from underneath her so that he could stand and offer her his hand.

Tired of trying to decipher her conflicting thoughts and memories, she acquiesced with a nod. She stood shakily, clutching the blanket to her body as he led her to the oversized antique-framed bed.

He pulled back the blankets for her as she sat down on the edge of the mattress slowly.

"Here…" he said as he began to pull off the Salvatore sweater for her to wear to bed.

"What are you…" she started to ask confused, glancing down as though to avoid looking at his torso, before he extended the sweater towards her.

"Put it on for bed," he instructed her, wanting to keep her warm and knowing that she'd want to be covered lest someone come to check on her through the night or in the morning. "I'll find another," he assured her, assuming that he could find a substitute somewhere in the school – having already been through a number of wardrobe changes that day.

"Thank you," she said as she lifted her arms to help him dress her.

He glanced away partially, trying to give her privacy while simultaneously trying to help her slip her arms into the sweater.

"It's nothing that you haven't seen before," she reminded him as her head slipped through the neck of the garment.

Apparently her foggy memory had allowed her to recall their tryst in the woods – perhaps a lapse in judgment to her and a memory that she'd rather not remember.

"Well, I didn't want to assume that you'd want me to see _it_ again," he retorted cheekily in his own defence.

Truth be told, he didn't think there was a day in the last decade that his mind didn't wander to thoughts of her creamy skin flush against his in the woods of the Salvatore property.

"You weren't that bad," she mused as she clenched the fitted sheet and pushed herself onto the bed completely and against the pillows.

He smirked, helping her cover herself with the blankets, tucking her into bed. If circumstances had been different, perhaps she'd invite him to join her and he would accept her invitation – even just to lie next to her while she slept.

"Sweet dreams, Caroline," he whispered to her as she eagerly allowed her eyes to fall shut.

He turned to leave, but she reached for his wrist while he was still close. He tensed, wondering if maybe his thoughts would become a reality – circumstances aside.

"Where are you going?" she wondered with concern, still seemingly unsettled by her clouded memory and confusion.

"I have to return to New Orleans," he informed her. "Elijah needs my help," he explained, hoping his reason would be sufficient without causing her anymore distress.

She nodded passively, appearing to understand though it was obvious her memories of the night's events remained uncertain. Her eyes fluttered open and shut as she fought the sleep she so desperately needed.

"Klaus, why do I have this horrible feeling that something is wrong…that something terrible happened tonight that I was a part of, but I can't explain it?" she said wondering, her eyebrows furrowing as the bridge between them tensed.

He frowned guiltily, regretful for having her involved one of his messes, while also frustrated that she was somewhere in between consciousness without a clear recollection of the night, preventing him from being able to question her as to what had happened with Elijah.

Refraining himself from giving any more details or questioning her about the nights events, he traced his thumb over the back of her hand.

"Rest assured, sweetheart, everything is okay. Our daughters are safe – that's all that matters," he told her.

This seemed to placate her once more.

"And just know, once things are a clearer to you in the morning, that I meant everything that I said to you today," he affirmed.

* * *

She gasped for air as she shot upright from a terrible nightmare, disoriented and confused.

In her dream – or nightmare – she was running breathlessly through the woods of the Salvatore property with werewolf Hope on her heels in pursuit as she tried to reach the clearing near the mill to stop Klaus and Elijah from making the ultimate sacrifice. With every stride she took to reach the clearing, it seemed to move further away, and every time she tried to cry for help no sound left her lips.

It was a relief to know that had been a dream, but she knew that it was based in reality. Her most immediate real memory was of reaching the clearing to see Klaus on the verge of surrendering himself to the dark magic while Elijah contemplated his intervention before she was attacked and knocked to the ground by Hope in her werewolf form.

She covered her eyes with her hands as she tried to adjust to the daylight trickling into the familiar room through the cracks in the drapes that concealed the large windows of her private quarters of the Salvatore School. Somehow, she had managed to make it back here to bed the night before. She wasn't exactly sure how that was possible, considering what little she could remember of the previous night.

Rubbing her eyes, she slowly started to peer through her fingers as she adjusted to the light.

Pushing back the heavy blankets she scanned the room, reacquainting herself with her surroundings, she jolted backwards and released a small but audible gasp when she spotted a haggard-looking Hope wrapped in a blanket on her chaise lounge staring pensively into the dwindling flames of the fireplace, a stack of what appeared to be old grimoires on the side table next to her.

Hope's attention quickly turned in her direction at the sound of her surprise and her movements on the bed, a brief look of relief overtaking her features.

"Hope?" she said with a questioning tone, acknowledging Hope's presence, though confused by it all the same.

It was unusual for Hope to be in her room – faculty quarters were generally off limits to students – though she'd made many exceptions for Hope when she was younger and plagued with nightmares that prevented her from being able to sleep through the night.

"Caroline," Hope replied, anxiety evident in her voice as she stood from the chaise hurriedly and rushed to her bedside. "Are you okay? How are you feeling?" she asked worriedly, giving her a once-over inspection for any sign of injury.

She clenched her eyes closed and opened them again in an effort to think clearly. "Things are a bit fuzzy, and I'm feeling a little rough," she paused, reaching over her shoulder and under the sweater she was wearing to inspect where she had been bitten. "But, I'm healed," she realized.

Hope smiled solemnly as she sat down on the edge of the bed beside her.

She glanced down at the sweater curiously, knowing it was not a part of her wardrobe. It smelled of teenage boy – but intermixed she caught the scent of someone else – someone more familiar.

"Klaus," she spoke absently, trying to mine for memories as to what might have happened after she blacked out the second time. Obviously Klaus had healed her – his blood was the cure. She thought back to what she'd seen in the clearing by the mill before her memory failed her. "Where is your father? Elijah? What happened?" she asked Hope worriedly, unable to control her anxiety for Hope's sake as she became even more panicked with every query she made.

She watched Hope's features fall. While Hope seemed sad, anger seemed more prominent.

"Uncle Elijah consumed the dark magic," Hope revealed. "When I attacked you, dad transformed to his wolf form to protect you. Uncle Elijah took advantage of the opportunity to enter the circle and Josie and Lizzie transferred the dark magic into him."

The exchange she had with Elijah in the town square before he'd snapped her neck floated to the forefront of her mind. He had said that if Klaus's redemption required the ultimate price then it would not be Klaus who would pay.

"Is Elijah…" she started to ask, hesitating when she reminded herself that Hope was still just a teenager – a student – and Elijah was her uncle. She didn't want to be insensitive.

"Dead?" Hope completed her question bluntly. Her tone of voice sounded bitter and borderline hostile.

She waited for Hope to answer.

"Not yet," Hope replied pointedly.

She was relieved that Elijah had not yet succeeded in seeing Klaus's plan through for himself, but her stomach knotted at the same time knowing that Elijah had sabotaged Klaus's original plan. Klaus would not be happy with his brother. Klaus may not be happy with her if he knew of her conversation with the elder Mikaelson. Certainly, her appearance in the clearing had distracted Klaus and had given Elijah the chance that he needed to consume the dark magic, but Klaus had obviously healed her, though he was not here now.

"But, he will be unless we can destroy the dark magic before it destroys him. I knocked him out with a spell to stop him from sacrificing himself with the white oak stake," Hope finished.

Her attention turned back towards the grimoires on the side table. The school had compiled their collection of grimoires from variety of covens – the Bennett's included. She suspected that Hope had been awake half the night studying their pages, searching for an answer that would save Elijah from the dark magic.

"Where is he? Where is your father?" she asked, repeating her previous question, searching for the answer she most wanted to hear.

"New Orleans," Hope answered. "Dad stayed with you awhile last night after giving you his blood to ensure that you were healed and then he left with Elijah."

As Hope filled in her blanks, pieces of dreamlike memories sparked in her mind. Emma Tig had been in her room tending to her wounds with some herbal remedy as she lay semi-conscious, shaking like a leaf in faint convulsions on the chaise when Klaus had appeared worriedly in her doorway.

"_I'm here, I've got you, love," _she could remember him murmuring to her as he'd scooped her up in his arms, holding her in his lap, her head resting in the crook of his neck against his shoulder as he sat with her.

Incoherently, she had tried to ask him what had happened. _"Shhh…You need to heal; you need my blood," _he'd told her.

She swiped her lips with her fingertips as she recalled feeding from him. Unlike times before where he'd offered her his wrist, she'd fed from the veins in his neck, her lips pressed against his skin as though they were back in the woods all those years ago. Had she been in a clearer state of mind, she might have opted to put some distance between them by feeding from his wrist once more, but she craved him close. His blood tasted like life, like warmth, and numbed the pain of the werewolf bite. He'd held her hair back while she fed, and once she had consumed all she could of him, she remembered him helping her to bed, tucking her in under the soft blankets that had enveloped her.

"_Sweet dreams, Caroline,"_ he'd whispered, vague memories coming back to her.

"New Orleans?" she questioned, snapping out of her thoughts, trying to pretend as though she hadn't zoned out lost in last night as her memories slowly came back to her.

The destination sounded familiar. She could have sworn that Klaus had told her of his plans to return to the crescent city the night before.

Hope eyed her suspiciously but nodded nonetheless.

"Guessing dad is hoping that Aunt Freya or the Quarter witches will be able to help come up with a solution," Hope replied. "Or, he's just taking him home," she added darkly with an indifferent shrug.

"And you stayed behind?" she asked Hope curiously. "Why didn't you go with them?" she wondered.

Hope remained quiet, intentionally ignoring her question by shifting her focus away from her concerned expression.

"You're angry with them…" she concluded for herself, pausing to see if her inference caught Hope's attention.

Hope turned back towards her, her eyes wide but watery. "Wouldn't you be?" she asked, not really looking for an answer to the question.

She waited for Hope to continue, sensing that she needed someone to listen.

"My dad used my first transition to trick me. He would have killed himself without even so much as a goodbye. Uncle Elijah was about to do the same before knocked him out with a spell. My dad was going to make me an orphan without a second thought. They were both ready to let me carry the weight of another relative's death on my shoulders. And on top of all of that, my dad thought it would be a good idea to let me roam free during my first transformation and I almost killed you - the headmistress of my school and Josie and Lizzie's mom – in the process," Hope said, releasing a long frustrated sigh as a stray tear slipped down her cheek.

Reaching out, she placed a hand on Hope's shoulder sympathetically with a small smile. Hope's guilt over attacking her explained why Hope had taken it upon herself to watch over her throughout the night.

"I'm okay, I'm here," she assured Hope. "Your father wanted you to be able to freely transform under the full moon – the way nature intended. As a vampire, I should have known better than to be in the woods," she pointed out, coming to Klaus's defense while also trying to make Hope feel better. "He was being a good father."

Hope scoffed. "He wasn't being very good father when he tried to sacrifice himself without even saying goodbye to me! Elijah wasn't being a very good uncle when he tried to do the same!" she said bitterly, her voice raised as her tears started to freely flow down her cheeks.

She sighed, knowing that Hope would react this way to Klaus and Elijah's actions. She had tried to warn Klaus in the town square. While Elijah consuming the dark magic was an imperfect alternative, she was relieved to know that Klaus had not succeeded in his plans for Hope's sake – and perhaps for her own.

Shifting forwards towards Hope, she sat herself on the edge of the bed and put her arm around her, literally giving her a shoulder to cry on as she had done many times over years that Hope had been a student here.

"If it's any consolation, I felt like your father and your uncle tricked me too," she related, trying to connect with Hope and what she was going through. "I didn't know that Klaus planned to use the white oak stake on himself to destroy the dark magic at first."

Hope rose from her embrace, wiping away her tears as she continued to sit beside her.

"At first?" Hope questioned. "You knew about the white oak stake? Why didn't you do something? Why didn't you tell me?" Hope said with an accusatory tone.

She sighed, feeling guilty about her involvement, even though it was Klaus's plan and Klaus should have been the one to tell Hope.

"It wasn't my place to tell you," she said in her defence. "I tried to get your father to tell you. I tried to talk him out of going through with his plan, but it seemed like there was no other alternative in the circumstances, and you know how stubborn he can be. Then Elijah confronted me about Klaus's true intentions with the dark magic. He knew that Klaus had other plans. I thought that maybe Elijah and I could come up with a way to buy your father some time – perhaps to find another way – but Elijah snapped my neck to stop me from interfering in his own plans to intervene in Klaus's. That's why I was in the woods – I was trying to get back to the school," she explained to Hope.

Hope's features softened, seemingly accepting her explanation as she lowered her head regretfully.

"Then I poisoned you with my bite," Hope continued the story. "If my dad had succeeded with his plan and killed himself, you would have been dead too," she said, clearly alarmed by the prospect of how much worse the night could have been.

She shrugged. "But I'm not," she reminded Hope, trying to get the girl to focus on the reality of their situation. "Perhaps you biting me is what saved your father," she pointed out, hoping it would make Hope feel less guilty. She didn't want Hope's first werewolf transformation to make her fearful or ashamed of her werewolf side.

"And put the dark magic into Uncle Elijah," Hope frowned, recognizing that the outcome was unfortunate, either way. "Dad will never forgive me. It's my fault."

"It's not your fault. It's nobody's fault," she said, trying to assuage Hope's guilt – and perhaps her own. She placed her hand over Hope's. "Elijah made a choice, too," she reminded Hope.

"Uncle Elijah can't die," Hope said, clearly distressed by the prospect as she gazed bleakly at the stack of grimoires that she had been reading through without answer.

"If anyone can help Elijah it's your father, your family, and witches in the French Quarter, I'm sure," she said, forcing herself to be optimistic about the situation for Hope's sake. "Just because you haven't been able to find any answers in there, doesn't mean it isn't possible," she said to Hope.

Hope nodded, though judging by her lack of enthusiasm she could tell that Hope didn't buy into her words of encouragement.

"You're not mad at my dad for not telling you about his actual plan at first?" Hope wondered curiously.

She shook her head decidedly. While she had been upset, feeling like she had been deceived by him, she understood his initial reluctance and ultimately why he had to do what he planned when it came to the white oak stake.

"I know that you and your father have a strained relationship because of his past and his absence, but he was trying to protect you, Hope. Being a parent isn't easy and sometimes you have to make difficult decisions for your children that they won't always like, or understand, but that are in their best interests. Klaus was prepared to sacrifice himself so that you could live and while I didn't agree with his decision not to give you a proper goodbye, I understood it. Everyone has their weaknesses – even your father; he might be brave enough to sacrifice himself for you, but he isn't brave enough to say goodbye to you – he can't stand to see you hurt. He didn't want that to stop him from doing what was right. Surely, you can't blame him for that," she explained in an effort to have Hope see things from a parent's – Klaus's – perspective. "He was doing his best to be a good father," she reminded Hope once more.

Hope hung her head regretfully.

"And I was being an ungrateful and hypocritical daughter and niece by refusing to go back to New Orleans and leaving my uncle to die without a goodbye," Hope concluded guiltily realizing the implications of her refusal to return to New Orleans.

"You were upset. It's okay. I'm sure that Klaus and Elijah understand," she reassured Hope. "Your father has done a lot worse when he's been upset."

Hope glared at her.

"Like murder your high school boyfriend's mother in revenge after he organized a hybrid rebellion against him…" Hope pointed out critically, her conflicted feelings about her father obvious.

She hadn't intended her comment referencing Klaus's temper to foster Hope's negative and bitter feelings about him. Clearly Hope had been doing some research about her father's history in her spare time at the school.

"That was a long time ago," she said in Klaus's defence, knowing the material in the history books at the Salvatore school contained a biased slant against the Original hybrid. "People can change," she reminded Hope. "What your father and uncle have done for you is evidence of that."

"Every book I've read and stories I've heard about my dad's time in Mystic Falls years ago suggests that he was terrible to you, Alaric, your friends, family," Hope listed. "He made your lives a living hell," she summarized. "And yet, you defend him, you care about him, about me, his family," she contrasted with puzzlement.

She smiled at Hope, remembering the same black and white way she used to view the world – how she viewed Klaus – when she was Hope's age.

"Well, a girl's secrets rarely make it into the history books you've been reading in the school library," she hinted, blush rising on her cheeks as she referenced her own complicated history with Klaus, sparking Hope's intrigue at her suggestive response.

Hope's mind seemed to be trying to fill in the blanks as a look of realization appeared on her face.

"You and my dad…" Hope paused, clearly now suspecting that her history with Klaus had been much more complicated than Hope had first assumed. "I don't even know how to finish that sentence," she said, seemingly stunned by her subtle revelation.

She laughed amusedly, standing up from the bed, feeling a little dizzy as she did so – still not one-hundred percent from the events of the night before.

"I don't even think I can finish it for you. There's a lot that remains unfinished as far as your father and I are concerned," she admitted to Hope, thinking about her time with Klaus in the town square the night before, as she pulled out an overnight bag from her walk-in closet. "But I can try and fill in some of the details on the way."

"On the way? Where are we going?" Hope questioned in confusion.

"I'm taking you home to New Orleans," she said simply.

* * *

**A/N: Thoughts?! **

**The next chapter will very loosely focus on the Originals series finale episode – I say loosely because the circumstances in my version are quite a bit different than they were in the actual episode. **

**I do think the next chapter will pick up with Caroline and Hope. Surprisingly, I really like writing them together (and Caroline filling her in on some details about her dad). That aside, it will take me a bit to incorporate the rest of my own ideas for the finale in with the events from the actual episode, but don't give up on me! **

**In the meantime, feel free to pass me a review with your comments about this chapter and your hopes and dreams for the Original finale us klaroliners never received. lol. **

**p.s. thank you Livingdeadblondequeen who read through two different versions of this part which I eventually combined into one because I was torn between the two. **


	3. Chapter 3 - Part 1

**A/N: Hi All, I'm back! **

**Editing Part 3 has turned into more of a project than I expected, so I've decided to break it into two parts. **

**Here is Part 1 of Part 3 – I hope you enjoy it! **

**Also, thank you to livingdeadblondequeen for helping me organize my ideas and sharing her thoughts and opinions!**

**Remember, this is a klaroline-centric retelling of the last two episodes of The Originals, so other secondary characters do not feature prominently (this fic would be even longer if that were the case!) - assume for the most part, that how those characters' stories unfolded in the actual show is how they unfold here unless it is indicated otherwise. **

**p.s. If you can spare a few moments of your time, I'd love to read your thoughts and hopes for the final _final_ part!**

* * *

For all she knew it was already too late; the dark magic may have already consumed Elijah, or, he was already dead, killed by one of his siblings who was brave enough to put their feelings aside to put him out of his misery.

Neither she nor Hope had been able to reach anyone in New Orleans before their departure for an update.

Regardless of what Elijah's condition was, she knew it was important for Hope to be there sooner rather than later and so, she had arranged for them (compelled them) onto the next flight from Virginia to New Orleans and they were set to arrive just before dinner.

To her surprise, Alaric supported her decision to return Hope to New Orleans – he'd even driven them to the airport with a disappointed Josie and Lizzie in tow to see them off.

"Maybe next summer Josie and Lizzie can come visit me in New Orleans?" Hope suggested as they settled in to their seats on the plane after takeoff. Even in the face of her father nearly dying and her uncle on death's door, she felt guilty about leaving Josie and Lizzie behind.

"I don't know how your father would feel about having three teenage girls to mind," she snorted, imagining Klaus on the verge of self-destruction as Hope, Josie, and Lizzie argued over the bathroom or food.

Hope chuckled alongside her, knowing all too well the kind of temperament Klaus had and what little patience he gave to people and things that caused him frustration.

"Thanks for doing this for me," Hope acknowledged sincerely.

She smiled and nodded appreciatively. "Maybe let's keep the compulsion at the airport between us though?" she mentioned to Hope, thinking about the school's prohibition against supernatural magic for selfish motives.

Hope grinned, having watched her amusedly at the ticket counter as she compelled them their seats on the plane.

"What compulsion?" Hope said cheekily with an innocent shrug.

Her eyes lingered on Hope briefly and she shook her head.

"What?" Hope asked curiously.

She gazed up at the ceiling of the plane cabin. "You remind me so much of your father," she smiled, marvelling at how powerful the magic of genes could be.

"I'm not sure if I should take that as a compliment?" Hope wondered, alluding to her father's infamous dark side.

"It's a compliment," she assured her. "He could learn a thing or two from you when it comes to manners, but you're the spitting image of one another in a lot of ways," she clarified.

To be sure, Hope had her mother's darker features, but otherwise, she was very much Klaus's daughter.

She could remember when she first found out about Klaus's impending fatherhood by a baby carried by Hayley Marshall, after a one-night stand no less. Matt had told her the news after learning it from Tyler upon his return to Mystic Falls after their breakup at Whitmore. She and Tyler weren't on speaking terms after his blow up at her when he'd discovered that she had slept with Klaus.

She felt a whole mix of emotions realizing that Klaus was about to have a baby. She was obviously surprised that it was even possible, but more than that, she was angry - Klaus had kept her in the dark about the pregnancy when she slept with him and he'd slept with a girl who had just as much of a hand in the hybrid rebellion as Tyler did. He killed Tyler's mom and ran Tyler out of town, but he had sex with Hayley. The hypocrisy of it infuriated her.

Though, as angry as she was with Klaus, she was just as angry with Tyler, whose trip to New Orleans for revenge had suddenly made more sense to her – he had tried to harm Hayley and the baby to get back at Klaus. While she sympathized with his need for revenge against Klaus, and as upset as she was with Klaus, an innocent baby did not deserve to be sacrificed and it disgusted her that Tyler would even consider it. Fortunately, Tyler had been unsuccessful in his attempt.

Given Tyler's vendetta against Klaus, she supposed she couldn't blame Klaus for keeping the pregnancy a secret – aside from the fact that it sounded as though there was no love lost between Klaus and Hayley. Klaus had plenty of enemies and if word of the pregnancy had spread to the wrong ears, Hayley and Hope would have been in jeopardy. And she realized that it was hypocritical of her to judge Klaus for having slept with Hayley. She herself had just slept with Klaus, who had been her sworn enemy when he first came to Mystic Falls.

Most of all, she just felt hurt and alone. Tyler hated her and couldn't even stand to look at her, and it seemed like Klaus was making good on his promise never to return to her. It stung, even though that was exactly the deal she had made with Klaus.

Over time, her feelings softened, especially when Klaus and Hayley enrolled Hope at the school and entrusted her and Ric with her care. Next to her own daughters (she was biased, of course), Hope was the smartest and sweetest girl and she grew so fond of her. Perhaps Klaus having a child wasn't the most outlandish idea she had first thought it was after getting to know Hope. Hope was good for him, and though he had made his share of mistakes with her, he was good for Hope too.

Removing herself from her thoughts, she noticed that Hope was quiet, staring away from her, seeming to hesitate over the next words she was contemplating.

"Can you tell me about him?" Hope asked tentatively, glancing at her with an unsure vulnerability in her eyes.

She arched a questioning an eyebrow, briefly unsure of what Hope was asking of her.

"My dad…" Hope clarified. "I've read Alaric's supernatural history books, I've read Stefan Salvatore's journals and it seems like I was the only good thing he's ever done – and I was a mistake."

Her lips opened as she attempted to interject – to refute how Hope saw herself, but she continued speaking.

"When I was younger, I noticed how difficult it was for my mom to say anything nice about him, and even my aunts and uncles – his own siblings – struggled to do the same," Hope sighed disappointedly.

"Your father would do anything for you," she pointed out, trying to remind Hope of how important she was to him and how much he cared for her.

Her efforts did not seem to satisfy Hope who shrugged. "That's usually what my mom would say," Hope huffed in defeat. "I want to know that the way he treats me isn't just an act – that I'm not the exception to the rule – that my dad can be more than the monster everyone has painted him out to be," she elaborated.

It was obvious that Hope was conflicted about her feelings about her father. Her warm memories and positive thoughts about him clashed alongside those stories written and told about him by the history books and those who had fought against him at various points in time. How could she care for someone so _terrible_? She had asked herself the exact same question many times over the years.

"I want you to tell me about my dad…aside from his brutal history in Mystic Falls…what made you see him differently?" Hope asked sincerely.

She sucked in a deep breath as she leaned her head back against the headrest of the chair, glancing up at the images alerting passengers to the placement of the oxygen masks overhead. If she was being honest with herself, she could certainly use one of those masks right about now. The curiosity of younger students was always easier to placate. Teenaged students always had such deep questions that required such thoughtful answers – and when their questions were the very same questions she had so often asked herself, even now, the answers weren't always easy for her to articulate.

"When we were younger, Lizzie and Josie showed me dresses in your closet and a diamond bracelet in your jewelry box…" Hope started.

She glared at Hope quickly, surprised by the revelation that her daughters had taken it upon themselves to rummage through her room and her things, even though she had instructed them not to numerous times over the years.

Why she had kept the things Klaus had given her, including the diamond bracelet she had once tore from her wrist to return to him and which he then gave back to her as a graduation gift, she couldn't entirely be certain. Initially, she reasoned that it would be a shame to throw out such expensive items. As time went on, she began to cherish the items for nostalgic purposes and the memories they held. When Klaus and Hayley had enrolled Hope at the school, she held onto them, sensing that she and Hope would be having this very conversation at some point in the future.

"They told me that my dad had given them to you…and then they swore me to secrecy because they knew they would get in trouble for going through your stuff. I never asked…because a part of me didn't believe it and the other part of me didn't want my sixth grade crush being revealed to the whole school," Hope said, her cheeks reddening as she revealed what her daughters had blackmailed with.

She was disappointed in her daughters' past behaviour, but it didn't come as a surprise considering they often resorted to blackmailing one another to secure their secrets and to avoid getting in trouble.

When the twins were younger, she could remember how interested they were in her clothes and jewelry, but she hadn't ever mentioned specifically who had given her the dresses and the bracelet. The donor was always, "mommy's friend" whenever they asked. Somehow, they had drawn the conclusion that Klaus was the "friend" she had been referring to.

"Your father always did have a way with gifts," she said, subtly acknowledging the truth behind Josie and Lizzie's claims as to the identity of the donor. She thought back to her surprise when she'd awoken to discover the shimmering diamond bracelet the day after her birthday and the undeniable way her chest had fluttered in response despite her efforts to ignore it.

"You mean bribes?" Hope corrected her sarcastically with an amused smirk. "I've received plenty of those."

She snorted in response, giving Hope a slight nod. "I suppose you could call some of them that," she agreed, knowing that Klaus's early efforts to woo her had as much to do with getting under Tyler's skin as they did with his interest in her.

"Some?" Hope queried.

She shrugged. "One of the dresses he gave to me as a favour after I pleaded with him for help – Elena Gilbert had shut her humanity off and stole my prom dress."

Elena may have since returned to her human form, and prom may have been over a decade ago, but she'd be lying if the memory didn't still hit her with a tinge of bitterness towards her friend.

While Hope was familiar with the supernatural history of Mystic Falls, including the fact that Elena and Damon had both been vampires, she seemed surprised by the prospect of no-humanity Elena.

"Did you take my dad as your date?" Hope asked curiously, teasing her cheekily.

She shook her head, thinking back to time she'd spent with Klaus scouring the closets and wardrobes of the Mikaelson mansion in search of the perfect vintage prom dress. "I'd actually invited him as a thank you for helping me – we had managed to develop a tentative friendship at that time."

"He said no?" Hope wondered interestedly.

She nodded.

"There was some Mikaelson sibling drama going on that he was preoccupied about," she shrugged.

"What a surprise," Hope sighed sarcastically.

"And, I'd discover that he'd allowed Tyler to escape Mystic Falls unscathed after he'd surprised me for Prom," she mentioned, suspecting that had been part of the reason Klaus had declined her invitation – he'd already known of Tyler's intentions to sneak back into town for the event.

While she had asked Klaus to accompany her largely out of guilt for requesting his help with the dress, she would be lying to herself if she said there wasn't a small part of her who was disappointed when he politely declined her invitation. Perhaps deep down she had wanted to show up to her senior prom on the arm of Klaus Mikaelson, to dance with him one more time, to listen to his endless stories of times past, to be flattered by his attention, and, if she was being completely honest, to rub it in Elena's face after she stole her dress.

Hope smiled and seemed pleasantly surprised by the story as to how she came into the possession of one of the gowns from Klaus.

"He obviously has a soft spot for you," Hope concluded, well acquainted with her father's penchant for revenge and the limited circumstances under which he might be dissuaded from its pursuit.

Hope's use of the present tense a subtle reference to the way Klaus had intervened when Hope had attacked her the night before and tended to her afterwards.

She could feel herself blushing just as she would have when she was younger.

"I suppose," she acknowledged coyly, still feeling the need to downplay the weight of Klaus Mikaelson's feelings for her despite the passage of time and their most recent confessional conversations with one another.

"Is that what made you fall in love with him?" Hope wondered.

She shot Hope a bewildered look before flashing the flight stewardess a polite, but self conscious, smile as she floated down the aisle past their row.

Hope responded with a backpedaling expression, seemingly apologetic for having made an assumption about her feelings.

The forthright question had hit her like a tonne of bricks which she hadn't quite anticipated. The 'L' word – something she had been dancing around when it had come to Klaus for some time. She often wondered if in her efforts to ensure that Klaus's relationship with her was entirely one-sided and to build a wall around herself if she, and others around her, hadn't transposed much of her feelings for Klaus into Klaus's feelings for her.

Was there a point in denying her feelings now? Her history with Klaus was so notorious amongst those closest to her that it seemed like she was the only one not in on the secret at this point. And besides, she and Klaus had already admitted as much to one another in so many words the night before.

But this was Klaus's daughter she was talking to, not just anyone. She had to tread carefully but honestly. She knew that Hope had asked her the question intentionally. Hope wanted a confession – much like her father had those years ago – but Hope's motivations were different. Hope wanted someone to relate to – someone beyond her aunts and uncles who were tied to her father by a sense of familial blood obligation – who cared about her father as much as she did to assuage her guilt in light of his brutal reputation.

Her eyes turned away from Hope, focused upon an elderly couple both napping in their seats in the row across from theirs.

"He made me see things differently," she relented, subtly answering Hope's question, but deflecting it just the same, as she turned back to look at her. "He made me see myself differently."

This response didn't seem to be the one Hope had anticipated, having hinted at the attraction that comes when someone who is capable of doing terrible things, for some reason, cares only about you – the kind she and Klaus had alluded to before. To be sure, she had felt that attraction plenty with Klaus as she thought back to all the times he had set aside his own interests aside to appease her or come to her aid – he'd saved her countless times (beyond those situations he had self-inflicted) – but that was just the surface of her feelings.

"I was newly turned and there was a lot of guilt and shame – my mom was afraid of her own daughter and my dad even tried his own version of forced behavioural therapy on me," she admitted, noting the irony of her father's behaviour given his sexuality and the proscription of gay conversion therapy in mainstream society.

Hope's eyebrows rose, obviously surprised by what she had gone through as a young vampire compared to what Hope and her classmates experienced at the school.

"And even though I had supernatural friends, they all carried that shame about who they were to a certain extent," she continued to describe. "I was struggling to reconcile the human life I had before and the vampire life I now had. I didn't know what being a vampire meant for me. I felt like I was going to have to spend an eternity pretending to be someone that I wasn't."

She thought back to what that time had been like – how frightening and uncertain it had all been.

"And then your father blew into Mystic Falls like a hurricane and despite the chaos he brought to everyone else, he brought me an unexpected sense of clarity that I had been searching for," she described, thinking of the night of her birthday when Klaus had healed her from Tyler's bite. Sure, Klaus had used it as an opportunity to demonstrate his position as alpha male, but that didn't diminish the sincerity of the insight he shared with her.

Hope smirked with amusement. "My dad isn't exactly known for bringing clarity to most situations. Uncle Elijah is usually the voice of reason," she said with disbelief.

"With his thousand years of life, he showed me that being a vampire wasn't the end of the world – but the beginning of a new one," she revealed, "One where I didn't have to be ashamed of who I was and one that I could embrace."

He had been right about her all along – overall, she had much preferred being a vampire to the human she was before. It was liberating to be free from the restrictions that human life had imposed upon her.

"That's why I wanted to open the school," she acknowledged. "To give supernatural kids a place where they can grow and learn that encourages them to embrace who they are while still respecting the humans they live alongside."

The sizeable donation Klaus had made to the school had also made a tangible impact upon its operation, she thought to herself.

Hope's expression softened, intrigued by the stories of her father that she might not otherwise have come to know.

"And it wasn't just me – or being a vampire – that I saw differently. It was how I saw everything – how I saw people," she continued.

"My dad?" Hope offered as an example with a suggestive look that mirrored her father.

She gave hope a slight roll of her eyes in response to her teasing.

"When your father first arrived everything was so simple, so straightforward – so black and white," she explained. "Klaus Mikaelson was the enemy. Everyone else was good, united as a team to stop him."

"He wanted to drain Elena Salvatore of her blood to make hybrids," Hope elaborated, justifying the initial stance everyone had taken against Klaus. "Tyler Lockwood was his first."

She nodded. "But the longer he stayed in Mystic Falls, the more complicated that simplistic view became. He wasn't as one dimensional as I thought he was and neither was anyone else after that. No one is pure good or pure evil."

Hope encouraged her to continue with an intrigued expression as she stretched out her legs as much as she could with the passenger seats in front of her.

"Your father wanted hybrids because he wanted a family he could control – who wouldn't abandon him. Your father slaughtered the hybrids because they wanted to kill him. His motivations for doing much of what he does – love, fear, survival – they are the same motivations we all have – the same as you, your aunts and uncles, me," she listed on quietly.

"It's not like you have ever…" Hope started, lowering her voice as the stewardess walked by them once more, "killed for any of those things," she said, her voice faltering as the final words left her mouth, as if realizing that her assumption may have been misguided especially given who she was – a vampire.

She sat quietly, giving Hope a moment to digest the revelation, it seeming to go down a bit easier given who her family was and the supernatural world Hope had already been exposed to since her birth.

"You may have read about Expression," she started, focusing her hearing and glancing around cautiously to ensure that no one was eavesdropping on their conversation.

While the school did not teach its students how to perform dark magic, they did feel it was important for the older witches to learn about the dangers of it.

"Expression is a form of dark magic," Hope confirmed. "I read about how Atticus Shane had manipulated Bonnie Bennett to use it to lift the Veil to the Other Side."

"Did you also read about how Bonnie was able to access that magic?" she asked Hope, knowing that the lessons and texts only scratched the surface of the dangers of dark magic, including Expression.

Hope shook her head cautiously, anticipating that the answer would surprise her.

"Three sacrifices of twelve souls were required to give Bonnie access to that magic," she explained, "And I inadvertently completed one of the sacrifices to save Bonnie," she confessed, explaining how the twelve witches had been linked and so that when she intervened to stop Aja from sacrificing Bonnie, all twelve witches died.

Again, she gave Hope a minute to process the information as she waited, knowing her revelation could change the way Hope felt about her, for the worse.

"Your father was there," she continued lowly. "He had been helping Stefan and I try to locate where the final sacrifice was to take place so that we could stop it. And even though I had used every opportunity up until then to remind him of the fate he had given to his hybrids, he was there with me through the night to help me bury the bodies," she said, wincing, the guilt still gnawing at her. "The hypocrisy of the moment was not lost on Klaus, who used the occasion to rub salt in my wounds about it. It hurt then, but I deserved it. And, that's when I really realized that none of us were any better than him – that nothing was as black and white as it seemed."

Hope was quiet, deep in thought about what she had told her.

"The hybrid sacrifice was one of the three sacrifices, wasn't it?" Hope asked, putting the pieces together. "But you said my dad was trying to help you stop the last sacrifice…" she thought with a confused expression.

She bit her lip anxiously, having not planned for the conversation to take this turn.

"Your father didn't realize the effect that the sacrifice of the hybrids would have. The rebellion was encouraged by Atticus Shane to facilitate the sacrifice, knowing that your father wouldn't tolerate defection," she clarified hesitantly, hoping that it wouldn't lead to further questions from Hope.

"But I thought that my mom and Tyler Lockwood tried to help the hybrids break the sire bond," Hope wondered aloud, trying to understand what her mom's role was in the planned sacrifice.

Sighing, she looked away from Hope, studying the cover of the in flight magazine poking out from the pouch on the back of the seat in front of her, her stomach clenching with anxiety. It wasn't her intention to delve into her mother's complicated history, too.

"Were my mom and Tyler helping Atticus Shane?" Hope asked.

She was too smart for her own good, she thought.

"Your mother…"

"Just my mom?" Hope concluded quickly before she had a further chance to explain.

"Atticus Shane promised your mother information about her birth family...about her pack," she said so that Hope would understand Hayley's motivations.

A disappointed expression fell upon Hope's face as she glanced out the airplane window passively.

She sighed, scolding herself internally for deciding to open up to Hope, sensing that it would somehow backfire on her like this. Klaus would not be pleased when he discovered the content of their discussion.

"Your mom grew up as an orphaned werewolf, she was alone without anyone to connect with, without her pack," she emphasized, trying to rebound from the turn their conversation had taken. "To a lone wolf, information about your pack is about survival," she tried to reason, finding herself more sympathetic to Hayley's involvement in the sequence of events that had led to so much chaos as she tried to justify her involvement to her daughter who had idolized her as the one parent she had without a 'tainted' past.

Hope was still avoiding her, staring out the plane window in contemplative silence.

She huffed in defeat, scanning the plane for the stewardess so she could flag her down for a stronger drink than the water they had brought aboard, preparing to ride out the rest of the flight on eggshells in anticipation of Hope's true reaction – which could be a burst of anger if she was taking after her father today.

"I'm sorry," she apologized. "The stuff about your mother, that's not where I intended things to go. I was only trying to point out how hypocritical I felt for judging your father so harshly after the witch sacrifice, how it made me see things differently."

"It's okay," Hope interjected quickly, turning to face her. "It is," she reaffirmed with wide eyes of assurance, the tone of her voice flat but steady.

More silence filled the space between them as she searched carefully for her next words, unsure of how to respond.

Hope exhaled as she leaned her head back against the headrest. "If anything, it just solidifies the point you were trying to make about my dad. Nobody is pure good or pure evil," she concluded, a thin smile of acknowledgment and acceptance setting upon her lips. "My dad and my mom included," Hope added, "but I still love them."

She nodded, tentatively relieved that Hope had understood what she had meant. "And that's okay," she said to Hope reassuringly. _It's okay_, she thought to herself.

They sat quietly for a few minutes, both of them processing their conversation, Hope gazing out the window while she checked her phone for the time.

"So, did you and my dad ever…" Hope started, trailing off as she gave her a suggestive glance.

At first she was confused, but she quickly concluded what Hope was referring to.

Her eyes widened. "Seriously?" she exclaimed with reddened skin. "I'm going to pretend that you didn't just ask me that."

Hope snickered with a mischievous glint in her eye. "I'll take that as a yes."

* * *

It was the dinner hour when the taxi pulled up front of the Abattoir – the morbid alter ego of the Mikaelson compound in the heart of the New Orleans' French Quarter.

Aside from when she had sought Klaus out to locate Hope and Roman, her last trip to New Orleans had been over a decade ago when she had unsuccessfully searched for Klaus with her twins in tow.

She sucked in an anxious breath as she settled the taxi fare and slid out from the backseat to follow Hope who was already retrieving their carry-on luggage from the trunk.

The scent of spices and the sound of jazz music filled the cooler air as clusters of happy tourists whisked by them unsuspectingly.

"So this is it," she said, trying to sound enthusiastic about their visit, as though this were any other visit and Hope was showing her where she spent her school breaks.

Hope nodded, obviously conflicted about her unexpected trip home.

When they approached the large double doors, Hope opened them and she followed behind her.

Her eyes marvelled at the large atrium space they entered, surrounded by the multi-storied residence lit by wall sconces and candles, and decorated with artwork, greenery, water features, and antique furniture. She had been so preoccupied over Hope's disappearance the last time she was here that she hadn't really had the opportunity to take it all in.

They set their bags to the side and she followed behind Hope as she scanned the unoccupied space. She could hear the chatter of voices and the scent of food emanating from one of the anterooms.

"Hope," Klaus said from the second storey stairwell, a familiar tone of surprise and relief in his voice in response to their unexpected arrival.

He and Hope exchanged apologetic looks from afar.

Klaus's eyes then set upon hers thoughtfully. She swallowed hard, nodding towards him tentatively, feeling anxious about what may come of her trip to the Crescent City.

She herself felt an overwhelming wave of relief wash over her at the sight of Klaus at the top of the stairs. Yesterday she was saying goodbye to him as he prepared to sacrifice himself for Hope, and now here he was, alive and well.

_Well _may have been a stretch, she thought as she inspected him closer. Though a hybrid, Klaus looked exhausted. It was obvious that he hadn't stopped since yesterday, with his attention likely now having been focused upon coming up with a way to save his brother from being consumed by the dark magic.

"Hope," Elijah echoed Klaus as he appeared from the anteroom.

By his appearance, you would never know that Elijah was possibly in his final hours – dressed in his usual suit attire – minus the jacket.

"Uncle Elijah," Hope gasped, the emotion obvious in her voice at the sight of him still standing and seemingly himself, having anticipated that her return to New Orleans to see him may have been too late.

Hope dropped her backpack on the ground nearly tripping over her feet as she bolted towards him, collapsing in his arms desperately.

Elijah, taken aback by Hope's unexpected appearance and embrace, allowed his arms to wrap around her slowly, his hands brushing her hair back over her shoulders as he kissed the top of her head tenderly. His eyes floated up to look at her thankfully as Klaus began to descend the stairs.

"I'm sorry," Hope cried lightly. "I should have come back to New Orleans with you and dad. I was upset. I wasn't thinking," she admitted regretfully.

"Shhh," Elijah hushed her as he rubbed her back soothingly. "I understand. It's okay. You're here now," he reminded Hope simply, quickly forgiving her.

"There has to be something that we can do to save you. Aunt Freya must have a spell or something," Hope said frustratingly as she lifted her head from Elijah's shoulder.

Klaus stood on the other side of Hope and Elijah as they both watched the pair sympathetically.

Judging by the sorrowful looks on both Elijah and Klaus's faces, she sensed that they had not yet come up with a solution to rid Elijah of the dark magic that would not see his life sacrificed in the process.

"She's tried, everyone has tried, I assure you," Elijah told Hope, indirectly confirming her suspicions about the lack of a solution.

Her own eyes began to water as Hope released a sob in response to Elijah's shirt. "It's not fair," she cried.

It truly wasn't fair, she thought.

"I know," Elijah agreed as tears began to descend his own cheeks. "But if it means that you'll be okay then that's what matters to me," he assured her.

Hope cried some more as the prospect of Elijah's death began to sink in even more.

"No more tears," Elijah pleaded with her, trying to regain his own composure. "This is not how I wish to spend my last night with my family," he told her as they parted from their embrace and Elijah extended his hand to wipe away Hope's tears with his thumbs.

Hope nodded reluctantly, wanting to honour her uncle's wishes.

"You're just in time for dinner. Everyone's here," Elijah said, smiling at Hope, no doubt referring to the rest of the Mikaelson siblings, as though the evening was to be any other evening concluded with a family gathering.

Hope tried to muster a smile in response.

She folded her arms decidedly and cleared her throat, sensing this was a good opportunity to give the Mikaelsons their space. "Well, now that I know Hope's made it home safely, I think I should check into my hotel and get settled in," she announced.

Suspecting that the next 24-hours and beyond would be immensely painful and personal for Hope and her family, she wanted to give them their privacy, while also remaining as a support for Hope if she needed someone outside of the Mikaelson family to talk to. Truthfully, she had also come for Klaus, to be a support when she knew that he would be at his most vulnerable and most prone to going off the rails.

"Nonsense," Elijah said flatly as he looked at her. "You are more than welcome to join us for dinner and stay here while you're in New Orleans."

She shook her head reluctantly. "I really don't want to impose. My hotel is only a few blocks away," she stated, as further reassurance that she would be close by if needed.

"We have more than enough room here, don't we Niklaus?" Elijah added, a subtle smirk seeming to tug at the corner of his mouth as he looked between her and Klaus.

Her cheeks began to grow hot as she tried to focus on anything other than Klaus, suspecting that Elijah may have had ulterior motives behind his invitation for her to stay at the Mikaelson compound, notwithstanding what he was facing – always looking out for his little brother, she supposed.

"Of course," Klaus confirmed to Elijah, causing her stomach to clench. Klaus avoided eye contact with her, seemingly afraid of what her answer may be to their invitation.

While her feelings for Klaus, and his feelings for her, were well familiar to the four people standing in the room, the objective of this trip had not been to solidify them in any real way. She was here, first and foremost, for Hope and Klaus to lean on in anticipation of Elijah's absence, and she didn't want to distract from that.

She hesitated.

"I'd like it if you stayed," Hope piped up, her genuine smile suggesting that her preference had as much to do with her as it did her father.

How could she refuse the invitation after Hope indicated her desire for her to stay? She debated internally with herself about what to do. She didn't want to disappoint Hope, and if her presence would give her some comfort after everything she had been through, then she would stay.

Admittedly, she wanted to stay

"What's for dinner?" she relented, trying to convey an enthusiastic demeanour for the sake of Hope and Elijah who were immediately pleased by her response.

Klaus's reaction, on the other hand, was a bit more difficult to read. Was he relieved that she would be here during such a difficult time? Was he afraid, knowing how he may react to Elijah's absence? It was hard to tell. He seemed as uneasy as she felt.

"Excellent," Elijah said with a satisfied expression. "We'll have a place set for you at the table and Niklaus can ensure that one of the guest rooms is made suitable," he added, eyeing Klaus with his instructions as though his hybrid brother was at his command.

"Thank you," she said reservedly, still not sure that her staying with the Mikaelsons for the duration of her visit – however long or short it would be – was a good idea.

Elijah turned to lead them all into what she assumed would be the dining room for dinner, but Klaus interrupted, causing her to tense.

"Brother, help Caroline settle in and introduce her to the Mikaelsons she hasn't yet met; I'd like a moment alone with my daughter please," Klaus said, looking to Hope anxiously.

She relaxed, as did Elijah, encouraged by the fact that it seemed Klaus was taking the opportunity to talk with his daughter and debrief over the events that had transpired over the last 24 hours. A part of her wanted to stay behind to ensure that his efforts didn't backfire over due to his infamous temper or impulsiveness, but she knew that he had to learn to handle these delicate conversations on his own.

* * *

He watched as Elijah, ever the gentleman, helped Caroline with her jacket and then showed her to the dining room.

Caroline's arrival with Hope had taken him by surprise. He had expected that it would be more than a few decades before his prediction about Caroline showing up at his doorstep in New Orleans would come true.

Now, here she was for a second time in a matter of months, having somehow convinced his daughter to let go of her resentments and return to say goodbye to Elijah, and about to dine with his family and stay under his roof. While the circumstances of her visit were bittersweet, and he wasn't quite sure what it meant for them, given the events that had transpired and the words they had exchanged under the belief he was about to die, he derived comfort from the fact that Caroline would be here when he planned to say goodbye to his brother.

He turned his attention on Hope who was eyeing him cautiously, obviously worried about what his reaction to her refusal to return home with him and Elijah would be.

Hayley had always been better in these situations with Hope than he had – hell, Elijah had been better with Hope in these situations. He was still trying to successfully navigate the waters of fatherhood in a way that wouldn't turn his daughter against him forever, and based on the last day and the last few years, he hadn't been doing a very good job.

His anxiety about how to handle the situation and what to say to her caused him to hesitate briefly as he tried to think about what he had rehearsed to say to her.

"Dad…" Hope said shakily, still visibly emotional from her embrace with Elijah.

He cut her off before she could continue. "Hope, I'm sorry," he apologized, the only thing he found himself able to say, as they moved towards one another and she collapsed against him, hugging him tightly.

No matter how many times she hugged him, it always gave him a feeling of awe that took him aback.

"You were going to sacrifice yourself without even saying goodbye to me," Hope murmured against his shirt, audibly upset.

He ran his hand over her hair while the other rubbed her back in an effort to console her.

"It was wrong of me," he admitted. "But, you're my daughter and I had to protect you," he reasoned, resting his head against hers. "And, I fear that if I had told you, I wouldn't have been able to go through with it – I wouldn't have been able to bring myself to say goodbye to you because I can't stand to see you upset. But, you have to know that I will always put you before me. It's what parents are supposed to do. It's what your mother did for you," he stated, feeling unapologetic about that and confident that Hayley would feel the same way. "Perhaps when you have children of your own someday, a long long long very long time from now," he emphasized for safe measure with a slight chuckle, "you will understand better."

Hope sucked in a breath and exhaled sharply as she attempted to contain her emotion.

"I love you, Hope. You're my heart," he whispered to her, desperate for her to know how much she meant to him.

"I love you, dad," she replied, her words of reciprocation filled him with warmth and relief.

They were quiet for a moment as he continued to hold her, sensing that she wasn't quite ready to let go yet – neither was he.

"Uncle Elijah," Hope said simply, referring to his fate after having consumed the dark magic in his place as she became audibly upset once more.

His chest tightened, feeling the same sadness as Hope at the thought of losing his brother.

"I know, I know," he said, acknowledging her pain. "I wish there was something I could do," he admitted helplessly.

Hope cried a little harder. "This is my fault. I'm sorry," she whimpered.

He pulled back from her, holding her by her shoulders so that she was face to face with him.

"This is not your fault," he said sternly.

"But if I hadn't bit Caroline…" she reminded him.

He glared at her. "None of this is your fault," he repeated. "Your uncle Elijah did what he did because he loves you…because he loves me. It's not your fault, do you understand me?" he asked her, waiting for her to acknowledge his words.

While he did feel guilty for Elijah's sacrifice, he didn't want Hope shouldering any of that guilt herself.

Hope wiped her eyes and nodded reluctantly.

"Now, I know that it won't be easy – it won't be easy for any of us – but Elijah has made it very clear that he wants all of us to enjoy one last night together and I think we owe it to him to do our best to honour his wish," he said, despite how difficult it would be. "Can you do that for him?" he asked her.

Her breathing steadied as she wiped her eyes once more. "Yes," she agreed.

He gave her a bittersweet smile of appreciation, pulling her in for one more hug before they had to compile their composure and put on brave faces for Elijah's sake.

* * *

She followed Elijah towards the dining room where the scent of savoury foods floated under her nose.

Though she was a vampire, she could appreciate a good human meal and the one prepared for Elijah's last supper smelled delicious.

Mixed in with the aroma of food, she had also caught the scent of human blood – no doubt a standard accompaniment to any Mikaelson feast.

She paused at the iron glass doors opened to the dining room, taking a minute to observe the space – intimately lit by chandeliers and candlelight with a display case of wine bottles covering the entire wall to her left.

A wave of apprehension hit her as those who comprised the Mikaelson family – stared up at her curiously from their places at the table. She recognized Kol and Rebekah, but everyone else was a stranger to her. She felt awkwardly out of place.

Elijah clasped his hands together as he stood beside her at the head of the table. "Everyone, this is Caroline Forbes-Salvatore – as some of you know," he said looking to Kol and Rebekah. "She's the co-founder of Hope's school in Mystic Falls with Alaric Saltzman and a close friend of Niklaus," Elijah informed them.

She noticed Rebekah smirking at Elijah's description of her as she sipped from her wine glass. Her eyebrows furrowed in her direction, suspecting that Rebekah knew more about the extent of her 'friendship' with Klaus than she had expected. Klaus had probably recounted every detail to Rebekah like a gossiping teenage girl when they left Mystic Falls to return to New Orleans after the death of Katherine she surmised.

"Caroline escorted Hope home and I've invited her to join us for dinner and stay with us while she's here in the city," Elijah explained.

Everyone smiled politely at her.

"I'm sure Nik will be overjoyed," Rebekah commented with a suggestive smirk before helping herself to a generous sip from her wine glass. She noticed that Kol was grinning too.

"Caroline, I'm Marcel, why don't you sit here?" the man with a handsome smile and rich cooper skin seated across from Rebekah said enthusiastically as he stood and pulled out the chair beside him.

She smiled tentatively and accepted Marcel's invitation as she watched Elijah round the table to its opposite head at the other end of the room and those seated closest to Elijah resumed their conversations as though she was just another dinner guest.

As she sat down in front of the immaculate table setting, she studied the unfamiliar faces a bit more and thought back to Hope's stories about her family and what Stefan had told her of his brief time in New Orleans when he had been on the run from Rayna Cruz.

Marcel had been one of Klaus's protégés – now an upgraded original vampire – and romantically linked to Rebekah off and on. Judging by the way Rebekah was making eyes at Marcel from across the table, it seemed that their link was currently intact.

The blonde at the end of the table, who reminded her a little of all the other Mikaelson siblings, she suspected was Freya, the long lost older Mikaelson sister, who the others had thought to have been dead.

By the way Freya was interacting with the young woman with curly hair and glowing bronze cheeks seated in between her and Rebekah, kissing her temple tenderly as she filled her wine glass, she sensed that they were romantically involved.

Likewise, the chestnut-colour haired woman with pale olive skin seated in between Kol and Marcel appeared to be a love interest of Kol's as he rested his arm casually around her shoulders.

"I assume you'd like the red," Marcel said with a smirk, as he poured her a glass of red wine, something she immediately sensed was infused with human blood.

She fought the feeling of her veins tensing under her eyes – she hadn't fed since before she and Hope departed for New Orleans.

"Don't worry, it's ethically produced," Marcel mused reassuringly as he also topped up Rebekah's glass and his own.

She arched a questioning eyebrow in Rebekah's direction from across the table as she wondered what 'ethically produced' meant to the Mikaelson family.

"Donated blood," Rebekah clarified with a laugh. Even after the time that had passed and the help she had given Rebekah by tracking Klaus down in France, Rebekah still derived amusement from her discomfort.

She disregarded Rebekah's amused grin and took a welcome sip from her glass.

"How's Alaric?" Marcel asked, making polite conversation.

Alaric and Marcel had crossed paths several years ago when Alaric had tried to help them stop the Hollow then.

"Well, he's since recovered from his last visit to Louisiana and replaced his Jeep," she mused, referring to his last encounter with Marcel.

She could still remember how angry she was when Alaric returned to Virginia, walking with a limp, scratched and bruised and without his Jeep, which had been collateral damage in his efforts to assist in destroying the Hollow. When Klaus had enlisted his help with the Hollow, she supposed that she shouldn't have been surprised when he'd returned a little worse for wear.

"That's good," Marcel chuckled. "For a human, he sure knows his shit about the supernatural world," he observed.

She nodded in agreement as she sipped from her glass. Coming from an upgraded original vampire, what Marcel had said of Alaric was a compliment.

"He's a human you don't want to underestimate – he was the first enhanced original at one point, thanks to my mother," Rebekah chimed in about Alaric.

"Elijah and Alaric never mentioned that," Marcel noted, intrigued by the tidbit of information Rebekah had offered.

It seemed so long ago that she and her friends had faced original Alaric in the midst of their efforts to stop Klaus from using Elena as a blood bag and killing her. She remembered the day at the high school when Alaric had her and Elena. Klaus had been there; and while his main motivation had been to ensure Elena's survival, he had been there for her too and he had come to her rescue first; he calmed her down and talked enough sense into her to save herself. Klaus was not the villain of her story, she repeated to herself.

"So…Forbes-Salvatore…" Marcel commented, before taking a drink from his own glass. He snapped her out of her thoughts. "Stefan or Damon?" he asked her.

It surprised her that Marcel knew both Stefan and Damon, but she supposed he had talked to Stefan or perhaps he'd been familiar with them from their time in New Orleans during the 1940s.

Rebekah snorted snobbishly. "She's had them both."

Her eyes widened once more.

While technically, she had history with both Salvatore brothers – she never had Damon; Damon had her and it wasn't a pleasant experience. Instead of letting it eat at her, she grew stronger from it – but she never forgot – even if she played nice for the sake of Stefan and Elena's relationship with Damon.

She wasn't sure that Rebekah knew the full story. Either way, she knew the Mikaelson sister was trying to get a rise out of her – it was Rebekah's personality. She could play that game, too. And just as she did with Stefan and Elena, she would pretend that she was unaffected.

"So have you," she bit back with a victorious grin as she sipped some more from her glass.

Marcel glared at Rebekah curiously. While not overtly jealous, it was obvious he had not been fully informed of Rebekah's past involvement with the Salvatore brothers.

While Rebekah was annoyed by her retort, there was a grin tugging at the corners of her lips as though she enjoyed their exchange of insulting banter.

"I knew about Stefan being your rebound from me back in the twenties, but Damon is new," Marcel remarked to Rebekah. "I'm starting to second guess our activities in the Mikaelson parlour earlier," he teased.

She cringed from having been provided with too much information as Rebekah childishly threw a bread roll at Marcel from the bowl in between them.

"Damon was more of a one-off hate fuck, really," Rebekah clarified bluntly with an indifferent shrug. "And if anyone should be second-guessing our romp in the parlour, Marcellus, it should be me, you stained my designer trousers," she complained, glancing down at her lap.

She nearly choked on her wine at Rebekah's revelation as Marcel chucked the roll back at Rebekah's chest. "You weren't complaining earlier," Marcel reminded her cockily before turning his attention back to her as she tried, without much success, to tune out the details of their conversation.

"Caroline _was_ married to Stefan," Rebekah piped up, filling in the answer to Marcel's earlier question. "Sadly, he passed away saving his brother," she added, flashing a sombre look her way.

It was the explanation she hated to give whenever someone asked her and so she gave Rebekah an appreciative glance for assuming the painful burden she had to bear so many times before. Every time she had to recount what had happened to Stefan it felt like an old wound being ripped wide open. The rings she was wearing as a necklace hung heavy around her neck in that moment.

Marcel and Rebekah fell quiet.

"He was a good brother then," Marcel acknowledged, the double meaning behind his comment not lost on her or Rebekah as they all looked down the table at Elijah who was engaged in conversation with Kol. "I liked Stefan. I'm sorry to hear that," Marcel continued simply as he looked back to her, tipping his glass towards hers in acknowledgment.

She nodded, touching her glass to his nodding towards Rebekah who also lifted her glass.

They all took a drink and sat quietly for a few moments.

Given her history with Damon, deep down Stefan's sacrifice for him within hours of being married to her always stung her. She supposed that's why she had married Stefan – he was selfless and always wanted to do good for others – perhaps because of his past. She also understood the depth of Stefan and Damon's love for one another and the guilt Stefan harboured from when he and Damon first turned. However, none of that made Stefan's willingness to sacrifice everything – including her – for Damon hurt any less. To be fair, Damon wasn't exactly dancing on Stefan's grave after his sacrifice either. The guilt Stefan once carried for Damon, Damon now carried for Stefan.

"On a lighter note – _I think_ – when Elijah says you're a _close_ friend of Klaus, how close are we talking?" Marcel smirked with a wink. "How the hell does my man Klaus fit into all of this?" he wondered curiously, attempting to change the subject after sensing her discomfort talking about Stefan and Damon – as though discussing Klaus would make her any more comfortable.

She could tell that Rebekah was loving Marcel's inquisition about her relationship history with Klaus.

"Yes, Caroline, tell Marcel, how does Nik _fit_?" Rebekah chortled like an immature teenage girl at her implied double entendre.

Her cheeks flushed red, but before she was able to snap back with a witty response to shut her up she was interrupted.

"How do I fit into what?" Klaus asked with naïve curiosity as he appeared in the entrance to the dining room with Hope in toe.

Rebekah and Marcel erupted into laughter and even she had to swallow back a laugh at Klaus's impeccable timing.

Klaus eyed them all suspiciously as Hope took the seat at the table across from her and beside Rebekah.

She watched as Rebekah smiled softly at Hope, leaning towards her to rub her back as a warm gesture to welcome her home.

The other conversations at the table quieted as everyone turned their attention towards Klaus and Hope, preventing Rebekah, Marcel, or her from giving Klaus an answer to his question.

Klaus poured himself a glass of the red wine from the bottle in front of him as he continued to stand.

"Elijah wanted us all together one more time, and so that's what here to do," Klaus said with a smile, seemingly in good spirits despite the circumstances. "Let's make this an evening to be remembered," he said, raising his glass and encouraging everyone else follow suit as he looked across the table to Elijah who was smiling back at him appreciatively.

They all drank from their glasses before beginning to eagerly pass around the dishes of food to indulge in – grilled meat and seafood, greens, salads - everything you could imagine you would want to eat was there. It was a feast befitting a Mikaelson occasion and she readily helped herself, falling victim to the delicious aromas alongside everyone else.

Though she was sitting beside him in those moments, Klaus was quiet, seemingly taking in the activity around the table, observing as the boisterous conversations resumed while everyone began to eat. The Mikaelsons may have been loathed by many for different reasons – but their family bond was something she admired, particularly growing up as an only child of divorced parents.

Studying Klaus discreetly, he seemed to be enjoying the sight of his family together as he smiled – genuinely happy in the moment. She found herself noting how handsome he was, illuminated by the soft warm glow of the lighting, his infectious grin, the line of his jaw hidden behind the stubble that suited him well, the necklaces draped around his neck (the same ones she had tugged at a decade ago in the woods), the tattoo peeking out from under the fitted dark Henley. She cursed herself for letting herself objectify him in such a way.

As if he sensed her eyes on him, he glanced at her, causing her to look away too obviously.

"So, what were you all discussing?" Klaus questioned her, Rebekah and Marcel, referring to the conversation that he and Hope had thankfully interrupted.

"Caroline was about to regale Marcel with your history together," Rebekah smirked, giving her another teasing look before returning her attention to her plate of food.

She thought she had been spared having to provide any details about her relationship with Klaus, hoping everyone had forgotten about the conversation before Klaus made his appearance.

Rebekah's comment seemed to pique Klaus's interest as he peered in her direction with a questioning look.

She avoided his inquisitive stare, instead being confronted with Marcel's mischievous grin as she took a bite of her food.

"I think I know now why you returned from your trips to Mystic Falls giddy as a school boy," Marcel concluded suggestively, pointing his fork towards Klaus accusatorily.

She cringed internally with humiliation as she bit the inside of her cheek to suppress the urge to outwardly express her embarrassment, though she could feel her skin burning, likely giving her away despite her efforts.

Her only recourse was to pass the focus off on to Klaus as she looked back at him with an arched eyebrow, curious about Marcel's description, though she knew exactly the occasions he was referring to.

Klaus shrugged innocently as he chewed his food.

"I don't think this is a conversation for the dinner table, mate," Klaus advised, sensing her embarrassment and no doubt feeling a bit uncomfortable himself as he looked to his teenage daughter who was pretending not to eavesdrop as she ate her dinner.

"You're probably right," Marcel acknowledged also looking at Hope from across the table and then to her. "I'm sorry," he apologized to her politely, deferring to Klaus, though she could still see the curiosity behind his eyes.

She smiled in thanks to Marcel as Rebekah sighed disappointedly. Rebekah lived for drama, she swore.

"It's okay," Hope piped up reassuring the four of them with a shrug. "I know that you and Caroline have a _thing _for one another. Caroline told me _everything_ today," Hope blurted out to Klaus with a boastful smirk, as if pleased that she had been made privy to information that others had not.

Rebekah's eyes lit up like Christmas trees at the turn Hope had taken the conversation. Her own eyes popped in horror, surprised by Hope's bluntness.

Marcel nearly choked on his drink and Klaus on the food he had swallowed as they too looked at Hope.

"_Everything_?" Rebekah questioned curiously, obviously trying to probe Hope to spill more details for her own entertainment.

Klaus glared at Rebekah warningly before casting an accusatory look in her direction as he suspected that she may have over-shared particular details of their relationship with his teenage daughter.

She defended his look with one of bewildered denial – she was just as blindsided as he was.

As Hope made eye contact with her, Hope seemingly realized that she may have overstepped by at least a few hundred feet. "Well, not everything," Hope said sheepishly as she tried to backtrack from her earlier comment, now flustered herself by what she had said.

This seemed to placate Klaus who took a breath and focused his attention upon Hope. "And the rest is none of your business, littlest wolf," he assured Hope much to her irritation – teenagers hated to be patronized and talked down to. "Just as I'm sure you think that the townies you choose to keep company with in Mystic Falls are none of my business," Klaus bit back with a smirk as he turned the tables on his daughter who suddenly found herself in the hot seat.

An expression of panic rose on Hope's face as Klaus's revelation about her sparked interest from Marcel and Rebekah.

Klaus took another bite of his food, chuckling as he chewed, leaning back against his chair and weaved his hands together victoriously. "Not to worry, the townie is fine," he mused.

Hope huffed, reassured that her father was only trying to rile her up, but annoyed by his dark humour at the same time.

She shot him a sharp look, urging him to play fair with Hope.

"Well, onto more mannered subjects then…" Klaus trailed off submissively as his eyes averted hers to look at Hope.

"So, besides the innocent townies you're crushing on," Marcel began with a teasing grin, "how's school going kid?"

"It's good," Hope answered briefly, as teenagers often do.

"Keeping up your grades from last year?" Marcel wondered.

Hope nodded humbly.

"She's being too modest," she cut in on Hope's behalf sensing Hope's displeasure at being the focus of their conversation. "She's at the top of her class in almost every subject," she elaborated eliciting proud smiles from Marcel, Rebekah, and Klaus.

Her flattery embarrassed Hope, but she deserved to be proud of her accomplishments at the school. Everything that had been going on recently with Hayley, the dark magic, and now Elijah and Klaus would surely set her back a bit, but she knew Hope would be able to get back on track with some determination and time.

"I wonder who she got that from?" Marcel wondered sarcastically with a shrug, shooting Klaus a joking grin.

"Who do you think truly inspired the term _Renaissance Man_?" Klaus suggested smugly as he pointed his fork at Marcel. "It was not da Vinci," he said cheekily.

She, Rebekah, and Hope (and she suspected Marcel as well) all rolled their eyes at him dramatically as they ate.

"I think it has more to do with her teachers," she quipped, giving herself a compliment.

Hope snorted, covering her mouth to prevent herself from laughing with food in her mouth.

"She might have a point, Nik," Rebekah agreed, taking the opportunity to defend her for the sake of throwing her brother under the bus.

While she could tell a part of Klaus was seething at being one-upped by her, he himself was chuckling at her quick-witted response.

"I like her, Klaus. She reminds me a little of Cami," Marcel observed, looking briefly up towards the chandelier thoughtfully before raising his glass and taking a sip. "And it's not just the blonde hair," he added.

She lifted her eyebrows curiously at the mention of a mystery-woman, looking to Klaus and Marcel to elaborate. _Cami_ was not someone she was familiar with, but obviously someone familiar to those seated around her.

"Camille; I met her in the Quarter when I first returned to New Orleans," Klaus explained to her.

The tone of his voice and his use of the past tense was not lost on her; it suggested that the relationship had gone beyond friendship but something had happened to her. Now was not the place for her to ask about Camille's fate, though it was obvious she had meant something to both Klaus and Marcel by the way they spoke of her.

"I think you have a type, Klaus," Marcel said jokingly.

"Speak for yourself, mate," Klaus replied, nodding towards his sister who narrowed her expression back at her brother.

"Blonde?" she queried of both of them with a laugh.

While it seemed that there was more to her that reminded Marcel of Camille, it was fun to tease Klaus about his preferences in the opposite sex. Klaus had always seemed so beyond the superficial, so it was intriguing to learn of his baser interests.

By Klaus's flustered expression, she surmised that she may have been onto something with the blonde comment.

"Intelligent," Klaus corrected, his eyes set upon her. "Beautiful, fierce, a heart bigger than the sun," he listed thoughtfully for everyone else to hear.

Her cheeks warmed with embarrassment and her heart swelled – reactions that his dramatic compliments were still able to stir within her. She could hear Rebekah scoff with feigned disgust and Hope was staring at her with a goofy grin, waiting for her to respond to her father's indirect compliments.

"And the patience of a saint," she cracked back, unable to resist the opportunity to make a reply at Klaus's expense. Perhaps she was more like Rebekah than she thought amusedly as everyone else laughed.

At first, it appeared that her retort had surprised Klaus, but he quickly conceded her point with a glint of a smile, which she reciprocated.

"Amen," Marcel agreed enthusiastically, tipping his glass against hers, removing her from the flirtatious banter she and Klaus had been engaged in.

They all continued to eat, finishing off the feast of food with the most decadent desserts as they continued to make small talk amongst their immediate group around the table.

In a way, she was thankful for the large gathering. Not only did it give everyone a brief reprieve from what was about to come, but it eased the tension between her and Klaus. When they had spoken to one another the night before, it was with the expectation that only she would have the privilege of seeing this night – not the two of them. With Elijah taking Klaus's place as a willing sacrifice, they were now both confronted by the weight of their confessions from the night before – confessions about feelings that still lingered after all this time. These were matters to be sorted out between them, but they were matters that could wait. They still had time on their side – Elijah did not and tonight was about him.

And, as her mind turned towards Elijah, she noticed him rise from the table, quietly observing everyone for a few moments as everyone's attention slowly focused upon him.

"I want to thank everyone here for joining me this evening," Elijah began as he stared down at his wine glass pensively. "It seems after a few centuries my story is coming to an end, and while I've experienced so much over the years, I couldn't imagine spending my last night anywhere else," he admitted sincerely.

She bit her lip as she listened to Elijah's speech. Though she had never been close to the elder Mikaelson brother and knew little about him, she was surrounded by people who did and it pained her empathize with their loss. It was the kind of loss that she knew too well in her own life.

Both Rebekah and Hope were struggling to maintain their composure as they listened to Elijah.

"You mean everything to me – even though you have all tormented me over the centuries at one point or another, some more than others," Elijah said with a chuckle as he looked at Klaus in particular. "I suppose that's what families are supposed to do," he mused. "Our love and our loyalty to one another have made this long life worth living," he continued, "but it also serves as a worthy end."

Klaus was trying to remain stoic, but his eyes were glassy and his lips were pressed tightly together as he fought back his emotion.

Her heart ached for him, knowing how Elijah's absence would impact him given how close they were with one another throughout the centuries. Klaus had never known life without Elijah in some capacity. Elijah had been there for him when they were children, faced with the wrath of Mikael, and after they had turned, Elijah had always been there to pull Klaus out of the shadows when he slipped too far into the darkness. Now, Klaus would be without him. While it would be difficult for Klaus to move forward, it wouldn't be impossible if he kept his focus and let Elijah continue to guide him in spirit. Damon had his difficulties, but he was able to move forward after Stefan. And, though it pained her to lose Stefan, it would have pained her more had his sacrifice for Damon been for naught. Klaus would survive by honouring Elijah's sacrifice.

On instinct, she found herself reaching for Klaus's hand discreetly under the table to comfort him and before she realized the weight of her action, her fingertips glided over his knuckles. He glanced at her briefly but questioningly, likely surprised by her gesture, but he accepted her hand readily, holding it tightly.

"It's my sincere hope, that long after I am gone, you will continue to gather around this table time and time again," Elijah urged them, his voice cracking subtly. "To be with one another…to have a drink for me," he said with a bittersweet tone as he held his wine glass.

They were surprised when Hope stood from her chair and approached Elijah, the tears obvious on her cheeks as she hugged him, too overcome by her emotions to remain seated as Elijah eulogized himself.

Klaus winced as he watched Hope and Elijah embrace, quiet sobs escaping Hope as she tried to contain her tears while Elijah held her close.

She lowered her head, looking down solemnly, not sure what to do but to continue holding Klaus's hand, her thumb tracing over his fingers, subtly letting him know that she was there for him.

Other's followed Hope's lead – Marcel and Rebekah both standing up to approach Elijah alongside Kol and Freya.

"Thank you for bringing my daughter home," he said to her lowly, as they sat together, apart from the rest of the group. "Elijah needed to see her," he explained.

She agreed with a nod, "Hope needed to see him, too."

They continued to watch as Hope and Elijah pulled apart so that the others could embrace Elijah as well.

"Speaking of a drink," Kol said, referring back to Elijah's previous words, "I swiped this from Niklaus's rare collection," he announced mischievously as he revealed a glass bottle of amber liquid.

Marcel high-fived Kol enthusiastically at his contribution (via Klaus) to the table.

Elijah, Kol, and Marcel all looked to Klaus, as if seeking his permission to crack open the bottle.

Self conscious that everyone had suddenly developed a newfound ability to see through wooden tables, her grip on Klaus's hand loosened and she stood up from her chair abruptly and began collecting her dishes and cutlery on the table. Her sudden movement seemed to only draw more attention upon herself from everyone than she had intended.

Klaus eyed her suspiciously as he himself stood up awkwardly, rubbing his hand over the pocket of his jeans before he turned his attention back towards the group who were awaiting his answer.

"Have at it," Klaus smirked with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Here we go," Rebekah groaned humorously, suggesting that the Mikaelson men and bourbon did not mix well together.

"Join us, brother?" Kol asked Klaus.

Klaus seemed to hesitate at Kol's invitation – perhaps reluctant to acknowledge the reality of Elijah's final moments by having a parting drink with his brothers.

She urged him to go under her breath. Klaus would regret it if he chose instead to wallow in self-pity during Elijah's final moments.

"Open it up," Klaus instructed them.

Kol smiled giddily as he cradled the bottle in his hands while Klaus's willingness to partake seemed to reassure Elijah.

"Get the glasses and meet me in the parlour," Elijah instructed. "I'd like a minute with Hope first," he explained as he turned towards Hope.

* * *

She could sense him in the entrance to the kitchen behind her, but she ignored him purposely, continuing to scrub at a particularly difficult dish in the sink from the feast they had all indulged in with Elijah earlier.

When everyone had left for the parlour to await Elijah, Klaus included, she fell back taking it upon herself to establish a one-woman cleaning crew, preferring to keep herself occupied while she gave the Mikaelson family their space.

Her ears trained upon his footsteps, listening as he stepped into the oversized kitchen, setting several dishes and utensils down upon the island countertop behind her, the sound of them rattling against one another startled her.

"You don't have to do these, sweetheart. My family may be centuries old, but we do have modern conveniences, like a dishwasher," he mused. "We also have a housekeeper," he added.

She shrugged.

"Dishwashers are useless against dried on food and not all of your fancy ancient Mikaelson dishes are dishwasher friendly," she pointed out with a scowl as she began to scrub at another plate.

Looking at the monogrammed china and the silverware, she could only guess how many dinners these dishes had served over the years and the types of guests who had eaten from them.

His amusement to her response was apparent in his sigh.

It took her by surprise when she realized he had moved next to her, the sleeves of his black Henley rolled up past his forearms as he sunk his hands into the sink beside her where she had deposited the clean dishes for rinsing and drying.

She snorted under her breath as he began to dry a bowl with a dish towel – something she had never expected to see in her immortal life – Klaus Mikaelson doing dishes. He set the bowl on the counter beside the others that were waiting to be put away and reached for another dish to dry. How domesticated, she thought to herself amusedly.

"I also thought you and your family might want some time alone with Elijah," she added more sombrely, genuinely wanting to give them their privacy in Elijah's last hours. She hadn't felt right about being present while they recalled old memories and recounted stories from the past.

There was a quiet pause between them as she continued to wash and he continued to rinse and dry until there was no more convenient counter space beside him to set the clean dishes.

He placed the dishtowel over his shoulder and reached for a stack of plates to put away.

"I think that maybe you're avoiding me," he said lowly in response to her comment, breaking the brief silence that had settled between them.

She scoffed. The bourbon had emboldened Klaus even more than normal.

"What reason would I have to avoid you? I told you, I'm helping you clean up so that you and your family can spend time with Elijah," she reminded him focusing upon the task at hand, purposely avoiding eye contact with him.

"Perhaps you feel guilty," he suggested out loud, his breath ghosting across her neck as he brushed by her to put away the dishes in the upper kitchen cabinet beside her. "Maybe that's why you brought Hope to New Orleans," he elaborated moving past her again for the clean cutlery to put away. "Because I know that you spoke to Elijah before he consumed the dark magic."

While she had been avoiding him to an extent and guilt was partly to blame – it was not the only reason.

"And if you were speaking to Elijah, then you'll also know that he already suspected your plan before I could get the words out to confirm and then he snapped my neck," she said sarcastically with a simple shrug, scrubbing a dish a little more aggressively as he inched in on her motivations. "And I didn't come here out of guilt. I came here for Hope and…" she stopped herself from finishing what she was about to say but she knew that the 'and' at the end of her sentence would not be lost on Klaus.

"_And_?" he questioned hesitantly, the tone of his voice vibrating down her spine as he stepped behind her once more, pulling the drawer open beside her to put away the cutlery.

Annoyed by his taunting game, she pulled her hands from the sink and spun around to face him, catching him off guard.

"I came here for Hope. I came here for you," she said with a frustrated huff, her voice agitated as they finally confronted one another, the proximity between them dictated by the small space between the sink and the kitchen island. "I came here for me," she said lowly. "And yes, maybe it was selfish to have confided in Elijah, but I was desperate, Klaus. I know how it feels to be the teenage daughter who loses her father and I know how it feels to be the woman left behind. I don't want Hope to be that teenage daughter, and I don't want to be that woman again," she huffed exasperatedly, her throat constricting as she fought back her emotions.

Klaus avoided her eyes, glancing past her towards the window above the sink.

"You've talked a lot about what you don't want," Klaus observed, testing her. "What about what you _do _want?"

* * *

**A/N: I'm so horrible for leaving this at a juicy part, but this was a good halfway point to cut it off. **

**So…what do you think?**


	4. Chapter 3 - Part 2

**A/N: I was finally able to finish editing Part 2 of Part 3! All of your reviews and comments on the first part really motivated me! **

**Here is the second part and the conclusion to this re-write of the Originals final episodes. It was a nice mini way to try and write something "in canon"**

**Thanks again for reading this and leaving your lovely comments and thank you to livingdeadblondequeen for being my soundboard as always! **

**Enjoy!**

* * *

"You've talked a lot about what you don't want," Klaus observed, testing her. "What about what you _do _want?" he asked her with tentative curiosity as their eyes met once more.

"This isn't the time," she said, her turn now to avert his eyes, as she attempted to avoid the subject and use Elijah's circumstances as an excuse not to delve into the topic further.

He grasped her forearm, his touch burning her skin. "I'd say with everything going on it _is_ most certainly the time, love," he challenged her.

She huffed in frustration as she looked down at his hand on her arm.

"Isn't it obvious?" she retorted, pulling away from his hold, feeling exasperated, still anxious about putting her heart on her sleeve. "I want you. I want what you've always promised – everything you…"

Before she could finish, his bourbon flavored lips were set upon hers and his hands framed her face, holding her in place to maintain their heated embrace.

He sucked the breath from her lungs as they kissed, the weight of his body thrust upon hers, pinning her between his hips and the kitchen cabinetry.

Her hands caught herself as she leaned backwards, clutching the edge of the countertop.

This was much the same as that time in the woods – a release of their pent up emotions, an eruption of volcanic proportions. It had been fifteen years since their last confrontation like this. But, there was something different about this time beneath the surface. This was about more than just physical need or desire and she could feel it in the way their lips lingered, revelling in the moment instead of desperately chasing after the next. The last time had been about claiming one another's body and submitting to the attraction; this time was about claiming much more than that, she thought, her heart thundering in her chest as her stomach somersaulted below.

His hands weaved into her hair with his thumbs caressing her cheek bones while their lips continued their dance.

She gasped for air as his mouth granted her a reprieve. His lips hovered against her jaw before dipping into the crock of her neck, kissing the tender flesh there hungrily with one hand now on the back of her neck while the other dug into her hip, holding her in place as he inhaled sharply, breathing in her scent before he returned to face her, allowing her to draw in his lips once more with hers.

Letting go of the counter to clasp her hands around his neck, her full weight fell against the edge as his body moulded into hers.

His kisses were heavy with want and she was sure hers felt the same to him. They had both needed this for some time, as if somehow it was inevitable that this would happen and they would end up like this – fate maybe? Or perhaps something more orchestrated from the moment he had set foot in her bedroom and their worlds collided head on.

The clearing of a throat from the doorway into the kitchen interrupted the moment. "Ahem," she could hear Elijah's voice utter.

Klaus's jaw clenched so harshly she could hear it crack like a branch as his hands fell away from her body and he stepped back having been caught red handed.

She looked towards the floor guiltily as she brushed her hand over her mouth to wipe away the evidence of their indiscretion as Klaus did the same.

"Ah, my apologies for the interruption," Elijah apologized nonchalantly as though he had not just walked in on them with hands and mouths on one another in a compromising position. "Now I understand why you were so eager to help Caroline clean up, Niklaus," he quipped to Klaus, the smirk obvious in his voice.

She cringed with embarrassment. She felt like she was a teenager again, walked in on by her mother with one of her high school boyfriends even though she was an adult woman perfectly capable of making her own choices – for better or for worse. I guess there was still something to be said for being walked in on regardless of how old you were. She felt guilty for letting her feelings for Klaus get the better of her on such a sorrowful occasion.

Her eyes drifted up from the floor to make reluctant eye contact with Elijah. He was leaning against the doorframe casually as though he was not surprised to find them like this.

"Impeccable timing, brother, as always," Klaus remarked with a sarcastic smile, though she could sense the bittersweet tone that lied underneath. This would be Elijah's last ill-timed interruption and Klaus knew that.

Before Elijah could respond, Hope appeared in the doorway beside him. "Aunt Rebekah wants to do a wish burning ceremony," she announced, completely unaware of the awkward tension her sudden presence had cut through.

Hope was glancing between the three of them expectantly, waiting for their response.

"Well, let's make sure Rebekah doesn't burn herself starting the fire then, shall we?" Klaus mused, stepping forward glancing at her and Elijah.

"You two go ahead. I'll help Caroline finish up here and we'll join you," Elijah stated simply to Klaus and Hope before glancing at her.

Klaus gave them both a suspicious look, but relented, patting Elijah on the shoulder sincerely as he followed Hope out of the kitchen, leaving her alone with Elijah and unsure of what to say to him.

She and Elijah were silent for a moment as he moved towards the sink. Anxious, she dug her hand into the back of her neck.

Elijah began to unbutton the cuffs of his shirt to roll up his sleeves and help her with the last of the dishes.

"You don't have to help me. I can finish them," she offered – Elijah should be spending his last evening with his family, not in a kitchen helping her with the dishes.

"I want to," he said genuinely. Disregarding her with a small smirk, he lowered his hands into the sink of water to wash the last few dishes that remained, oddly content completing the mundane task.

She didn't protest. Instead, she collected a dry dish towel and began to dry the dishes beside him.

"Again, I'm sorry for my interruption," Elijah spoke sincerely. "It seems I have a knack for it," he said, referring to their encounter in the town square of Mystic Falls the night previous.

She shook her head. "Better you than Hope, I suppose," she suggested, trying to lighten the mood by making a joke at her expense.

Elijah chuckled with a slight nod of agreement. "Thank you for bringing her home. It does me good to see her," he admitted.

She nodded, her heart sinking at the solemn undertone of Elijah's voice. "Hope has become an amazing young woman," she reassured him. "She loves you a lot. She stayed up last night until she couldn't keep her eyes open, combing through spell books trying to find some other way," she revealed, wanting Elijah to know that despite how upset Hope had been with him and Klaus, she cared deeply for both of them.

"I love her," Elijah smiled thoughtfully. "And I love her father – my brother – very much," he continued, the conviction in his voice subtle affirmation of the sacrifice he had made for both Hope and Klaus.

"He loves you too," she confirmed, knowing how much Elijah meant to Klaus, and wanting to assure Elijah that the brotherly affection he had for Klaus was reciprocated even though Klaus did not always have the best ways of showing it.

Elijah gave her an appreciative smile as he handed her another dish for rinsing and drying.

"Do you love him – Niklaus?" Elijah asked her directly.

Even up to his very last hours, Elijah was still looking out for his younger brother.

"I know it's rather impolite of me to ask you such a thing, but unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of time to spend on pleasantries this evening," Elijah prefaced. "I need to know that my brother has placed his heart in good hands."

She sympathized with his worry in knowing that very soon, he'd no longer be able to protect his brother from himself or those that would wrong him when that's all he had done for the last thousand years.

Placing the dried dishes on the counter, she considered his question.

"I didn't just come here for Hope," she confessed to Elijah. "I came here for Klaus. I love him; deep down, I always have. And after almost losing him, I don't want to spend another decade trying to convince my heart that I don't simply out of fear," she explained, alluding to the conversation that they had the night before in the town square.

Elijah smiled softly at her.

"Niklaus is not without his flaws," Elijah acknowledged as they both exchanged brief laughs, knowing how insufferable Klaus could be at times. "He doesn't love easily. And I can't promise you that he'll never make you wish that you had saved some of the last white oak stake," he mused, "but if you give him your heart, his will be unwavering," he finished.

From her own experiences with Klaus, she knew that Elijah wasn't lying. _However long it takes_, she recalled Klaus saying to her on the evening of her graduation ceremony.

"I worry that losing you will break him…" she admitted, fearful of the impact that Elijah's absence would have on Klaus.

Elijah nodded in understanding, knowing how Klaus could be when faced with loss.

"My brother can be a bit…dramatic at times, to say the least," Elijah acknowledged. "But he has so much to live for that there is no reason for him to dwell on my absence and if he should he ever forget that, then I give you my blessing to give him a swift and forceful reminder," he said with a smirk.

She laughed alongside him. She had certainly put Klaus in his place many times before and she wasn't afraid to do it again if she needed to, but she hoped that it would be enough.

They were quiet for a moment; Elijah clearly had a lot on his mind.

"Are you afraid?" she wondered curiously, hoping she hadn't crossed a line with her question.

Elijah thought for a moment before shaking his head.

"I've lived lifetimes," he told her. "While I've experienced so much over the years, it's made me rather weary," he explained. "I'm content knowing that my family will have one another – knowing that Hope has been spared from the Hollow's dark magic and that she has her father to look out for her," Elijah concluded with a satisfied expression.

She smiled, comforted by his response.

"Having said that, there is one favour I need to ask of you, Caroline," Elijah began.

* * *

As he wrote out the names of his loved ones on small pieces of paper to participate in the wish burning ceremony, he noticed Elijah and Caroline appear.

There seemed to be a look of ease on Elijah's face in a way that had not been there earlier that evening and he wondered curiously what his older brother had discussed with his enemy turned friend turned lover turned…well, he wasn't quite sure how to finish that yet.

As Caroline made brief eye contact with him from over the glow of the fire, he couldn't deny the excitement he felt at the prospect of discovering where his relationship with the fearless blonde baby vampire would turn next – despite the guilt that overshadowed his feelings when he thought of Elijah, his sacrifice, and his impending absence.

_Caroline_, he found himself inscribing on the last piece of paper he had while he watched Hope approach Caroline and Elijah and hand them pieces of paper so that they too could participate in the wish burning ceremony.

It's not that he had thought of Caroline last in naming those he cared for on the pieces of paper he now clutched in his hands, or that he cared for her the least, but to name her in this way was symbolic - it meant she was a part of his life in a way that very few were, and while it was something he wanted for a very long time, the prospect of it now being so real, so close to coming to fruition – and the sacrifices that were needed to make it so – terrified him. He didn't want to sabotage this with her and break her and himself in the process. He didn't want his relationship with Caroline to be another way to disappoint his brother's impending sacrifice. The pressure weighed heavy on him.

"Mind if I borrow your pen?" Caroline's voice asked tentatively, snapping him from his thoughts as he looked up at her from his chair.

She smiled down at him, her blue eyes shimmering from the light of the flames, and complimented by the deep blue blouse she was wearing, as he handed her his pen and stood up, allowing her to take his seat so that she could write out the names of those she cared for.

Caroline's participation in the wish burning ceremony was itself symbolic. Wish burning ceremonies were a Mikaelson family tradition and Caroline participating in the tradition suggested a level of intimacy to their relationship that had not been there before.

Hope stood beside Elijah as he wrote down the names of those closest to him. While he knew that Hope was doing her best to keep her spirits up for Elijah's sake, he could sense her guilt, anxiety, and her sadness as she waited for Elijah to finish.

He did his best to give her a reassuring smile from across the flames, though he felt similar to her. He wished that there was something else that could be done to rid Elijah of the dark magic before it consumed him and unleashed upon anyone who crossed his path. There was not enough time.

He tried to derive comfort in Elijah's final hours from the happy expressions he saw on his siblings' faces as they talked and laughed with their significant others – though he knew they too were trying to distract themselves from Elijah's imminent absence.

"So, you'll have to tell me what to do," Caroline told him encouragingly as she held up the paper between her fingers and stood beside him.

"Well, it's like blowing out candles on a birthday cake, but sort of the opposite," he mused as he thumbed the pieces of paper in his hand. "With each name written, you make a wish for each person named as you toss the name into the flames…for luck," he described.

Caroline looked at him intrigued, shuffling her own pieces of paper in her hand, inspecting them thoughtfully. "Wish burning," she stated, the name of the tradition beginning to make sense to her as she watched others in his family discard their pieces of paper into the fire before following suit after them, letting each piece of paper slip out of her hand one-by-one.

Self-consciously, he wondered if his name had been written down on one of those pieces of paper and what she had wished for him if she'd thought of him at all.

He let his pieces of paper fall from his fingertips and sprinkle into the fire after Hope let hers go.

"I bet this is the thousandth time Niklaus has wished for a personality," Kol snickered insultingly from the other side of the fire.

Davina, never a fan of his, laughed alongside Kol and the rest of his family, inclusive of Caroline, followed suit to his chagrin.

"Perhaps I shall push you into the flames so you can retrieve my wish and see for yourself?" he proposed to Kol bitingly with a childish smirk.

Kol shrugged, unfazed by his threat. "Well, I can certainly say that this is the thousandth time that I've wished for my brother to get a sense of humour," he teased, proud of his quick-witted retort.

He gritted his teeth. "And the thousandth time I've wished that Elijah and I were successful as boys when we tried to barter our baby brother for a rock collection from the river," he sneered, thinking back to how he and Elijah tried to trade Kol for another villager boy's prized collection of rocks before their mother noticed. Mikael had been away on a hunt, allowing them to get away with more than normal.

"I must say that I will miss this bickering," Elijah cut in bluntly, his smile suggesting that he was actually being sincere rather than sarcastic.

He and Kol made knowing eye contact with one another as they both laughed guiltily. They could be the worst when it came to harassing one another. It had always been the case and Elijah was always there to step in as the mediator. Soon enough, they would lose Elijah and he and Kol would be left to their own devices.

"Truly," Elijah emphasized as he stepped towards the light of the fire, capturing the attention of everyone who stood around it. "I hope that long after I'm gone that you will all still come together like this, bickering included," he said as he wrapped his arm around Hope.

Clenching the inside of his cheek to hold back his emotion, he tried not to dwell upon the emptiness that would no doubt be felt at future Mikaelson gatherings with Elijah's absence hanging over them.

He was reminded of Caroline's presence beside him at the careful concealed touch of her sympathetic hand on the back of his forearm.

"We are bound forever to those with whom we share blood, and while we may not choose our family, that bond is our greatest strength," Elijah said thoughtfully, glancing first to the flames and then to everyone listening.

Elijah was right – the bond of their family had gotten them through so much.

"Though I may be leaving you tonight, this is not the end of the Mikaelsons," Elijah affirmed as he took Hope's hand in his, studying their clasped hands with a bittersweet expression before looking up once more.

He sucked in an expectant breath as he waited for his brother to finish his parting words.

"Always and forever," Elijah concluded as confidently as he could before hugging Hope to his chest, fighting himself to contain his own emotions.

Elijah's words echoed throughout the atrium as everyone recited back to him the Mikaelson family oath.

"Always and forever," he affirmed solemnly, making eye contact with Elijah and exchanging a knowing nod.

As he sighed regretfully, Caroline's hand clenched his arm reassuringly.

"Always and forever," she whispered lowly enough for only him to hear.

The intentions behind her words were unclear to him. A part of him took it as her gentle reminder that his family oath was everlasting and that even with Elijah gone, he would still be here for them all. Another, more confident part of him, hoped that she meant it as a personal promise to him – that no matter what, even when Elijah was gone, she would always be here for him.

* * *

"I think what you're doing with the Salvatore School is a really great thing," Freya commented to her as she conversed with her and her wife, Keelin, about school and the many supernatural children who resided on the campus.

"Thank you," she said appreciatively. "I hope so," she added.

Notwithstanding their good intentions, there were some parents of supernatural children who did not agree with their approach and took the position that their children should be at school with humans, learning to suppress and hide their abilities. As a result, she took every compliment she received about the school to heart because it was reassuring to know that others believed that she and Alaric were doing right by the children they taught and cared for.

Freya nodded towards Hope who was sitting with Elijah looking through old family photographs as they all shared a final drink with him around the dwindling fire where they had burned their wishes earlier.

"I think Hope is proof of that," Freya concluded.

She smiled softly at the sight of Hope taking in old memories that Elijah recounted to her as they flipped through the pages of the photo album.

"I hope she'll be okay through all of this," she said worriedly, recounting again all that Hope had been through in her short life, especially over the last while, having lost Hayley, triggering her werewolf gene, nearly losing Klaus, and now losing Elijah.

Freya turned back towards her. "It's not Hope I'm worried about," she said, her attention averted past her.

Turning around to investigate where Freya was looking, she saw Klaus trudging up the stairs alone towards the second level glumly with a drink in hand.

She sighed with a disappointed frown. "Excuse me," she said to Freya and Keelin mustering an apologetic smile before turning on her heel after Klaus, who was apparently already in need of one of the swift and forceful reminders Elijah had given her permission to inflict.

Perhaps it was a bit gutsy of her to follow after the forlorn hybrid in plain sight of his family as he slipped away to the second storey, but her back shielded her from any judgmental looks she may have received from them. In any case, the sound of their voices suggested they were all preoccupied with conversation.

Disregarding the partially closed doors Klaus had passed through, she didn't bother to knock, entering the room she had found herself in the last time she had come to New Orleans for him. The room appeared to double as an office or Klaus's art studio, as she noted the large wooden desk, but also the easel to the side.

She took a minute to soak in the other details around her – the antique furniture, light fixtures, area rugs, and paintings on the wall (which she absently wondered if Klaus had created). This house was like a museum, she thought – straight out of the nineteenth century.

As she glanced around the room, she noticed Klaus, nursing his drink on the balcony overlooking the quarter.

She could hear the enthusiastic jazz music emanating from the street below.

"Go away," Klaus muttered with self-pity, seemingly unaware that it was her who had interrupted his solitude.

With a determined huff, she walked purposefully towards open glass doors to the outside, blatantly ignoring his instructions.

"Now who's avoiding," she commented, referring to his earlier comment when he had found her in the kitchen doing the dishes.

He was silent, looking down at the activity below in quiet contemplation. She approached and stood beside him, placing her hands on the iron rail as she glanced down to take in the evening lights and lively tourists streaming along the sidewalks notwithstanding the cooler temperature.

"I can see why you were so eager to show me the city when you first left Mystic Falls," she observed, noting the voicemail message she'd received from him all those years ago. "You owe me a tour," she reminded him.

When he called her she had been trying to keep herself busy by helping with prep for the graduation ceremony. It was just after prom – Tyler had barely been in Mystic Falls long enough for a dance before he left and she'd just found out that Klaus had departed suddenly for New Orleans. She made that discovery after she had attempted to return the gown he gifted to her only to be greeted by a compelled moving crew in his driveway – the destination of Klaus's belongings had been on a trip log she inspected in the cab of the moving truck when the crew was preoccupied inside packing. And even though Klaus owed her no explanation, his absence, without so much as a goodbye, felt like a punch to the stomach.

When she informed her friends of Klaus's unexpected exit, their elated reactions made her feel isolated and conflicted. All she had ever wanted when Klaus first arrived in town was for him to leave, and yet when he actually left, she didn't feel the joy she thought that she would. In fact, while everyone was celebrating, she found herself trying to swallow back tears. So, to cover up the pain she tried to deny, she kept busy by focusing on her exams and ending high school on a high note with the graduation ceremony.

Later that evening as she lied awake alone in her room, after a long day of planning and preparing, she pulled out her phone to listen to the voicemail he had left – more than once, if she was being honest. It was bittersweet to hear his voice. She hated that the very sound of his voice made her face beam with happiness and her heart inexplicably ache in the most painful of ways. Klaus told her of how he wanted to show her one of his favourite places and she could hear the sounds of the city in the background. Oh, how a part of her wanted to take him up on the invitation even then, but she was still too afraid to face and accept what that meant. That same hesitation stopped her from calling him back to talk, even though she knew he would likely be awake at that late hour.

Now, years later, here she was standing beside him in the city he spoke of to her in the voicemail.

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye with a sheepish grin as he sipped from his glass. She'd seemingly embarrassed him with her reminder of the voicemail.

"Indeed, I do," he acknowledged. "My offer still stands," he added sincerely, shrugging off any humiliation he may have derived from his past efforts to romance her via voicemail message.

_However long it takes_, his words spoken to her at her graduation echoed in her mind.

She smiled at him before they fell silent once more, both looking out over the activity in the Quarter.

Her purpose for following Klaus was to confront him about his disappearance when Elijah had little time left to spend with him. However, she had to be strategic. She knew that Klaus would not respond well to direct confrontation and she also knew that he wasn't hiding to hurt Elijah. He was hiding because he was hurting – this was classic Klaus. Isolation or unleashing terror on those who deserved it was his preferred coping mechanisms. Fortunately, he seemed to be favouring the former instead of the latter as of late. Progress, she thought to herself.

"What did you wish for tonight?" she asked, attempting to make conversation in hopes that it would lead to a way for her to convince Klaus to rejoin his family downstairs so that he would not regret these final moments lost with Elijah.

Klaus arched his eyebrow and gave her a critical look, his boyish features reappearing.

"I can't tell you that, sweetheart," he replied, childishly offended that she would even have the audacity to ask him such a thing.

"Why not?" she asked him, challenging him with an amused tone.

"Well, then what I wished for won't come true," he stated simply as though this longstanding superstition was written into ancient law somewhere, and he, as an immortal hybrid was full invested in it.

She rolled her eyes and scoffed. "I don't believe that," she told him.

He eyed her curiously, urging her to explain.

"I think it's better luck if you share your wishes with someone," she cajoled. "Wishes don't always just happen to us, sometimes we need to make them happen and sometimes we need help to make them happen," she reasoned.

She wanted him to open up to her.

His eyes cast out once more down to the street below as he contemplated her words.

"I wished that Elijah would finally find peace – free from having to worry about his unruly younger siblings," he sighed, seemingly regretful that he had contributed to Elijah's relentless concern over the years.

"He will," she said confidently in an effort to reassure him to assuage his fears as to what Elijah's final fate would be once he was gone.

Klaus sipped from his glass passively, avoiding her comment. While he wished for Elijah to find peace, she knew he didn't want to dwell on his impending absence too much.

"I wished that Kol and Marcel would become more bearable," he snorted jokingly to himself to cover up his anxiety about Elijah, referring to his love/hate relationship with his younger brother and that of Marcel – both of which she was vaguely familiar with.

She laughed, knowing that he probably wasn't joking – though she was sure his real wish was that their brotherly relationship would improve in Elijah's absence.

"I wished that Freya and Keelin would be able to have a child of their own someday and that Rebekah would one day be able to live the human life she's always wanted," he admitted, revealing his softer side when it came to his sisters.

"Uncle Klaus," she mused.

He shrugged, a small satisfied grin playing on his lips at the thought.

"What about Hope?" she wondered, interested to know what he would wish for his daughter.

He glanced away, trying to conceal his expression in response to her query about Hope.

"I wished that Hope would find something that she's truly passionate about; that she'll find someone to share her life with," he revealed.

Even the big bad hybrid wanted what everyone wanted for their children, she thought as she smiled sweetly.

She waited expectantly for him to continue, wondering if he had made a wish about her.

He glanced at her, a mischievous look in his eye as though he knew what she was waiting for.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"I guess you have no wishes for a particular blonde vampire from Mystic Falls?" she hinted smugly with a purposefully indifferent shrug, causing him to chuckle.

"I wished that your school would continue to be a success," he said anti-climatically, as though trying to taunt her.

She glared at him, knowing that while his wish for the Salvatore School may have been sincere, his wishes for her ran much deeper than that and those were the ones she wanted to know about.

Waiting, she looked away, staring down at a group of friends on the street fighting with each other over some Mardi gras beads.

"I wished that your heart wasn't so afraid," he said cryptically, his eyes avoiding hers.

Arching a questioning eyebrow in his direction, she waited for him to explain.

"Of me," he said, clarifying what he meant, looking at her briefly before focusing on his glass, obviously worried as to what her reaction might be.

It was true – her heart had been afraid of him – she had admitted as much to Silas in the past when she had thought he was Klaus, but her heart wasn't afraid of him in the way that everyone else feared Klaus Mikaelson. She was fearful because she knew that things would be different with Klaus than they had been with Stefan or Tyler. Once she opened her heart to Klaus, there would be no going back. Her heart would be his and its fate would be in his hands.

"But you underestimate your power, love," he admitted, suggesting that he had the same fears about her as she did about him and that she had much more control over their dynamic than she gave herself credit for.

Her features softened as she studied him quietly, silently inviting him to continue in case there was more.

Glancing up at the night sky, he mused to himself. "And as far as the rest of my wishes for you are concerned…" he trailed off, a devious smirk playing on his lips as he considered his next words. "Let's just say that they're more appropriately demonstrated than discussed."

It took her a moment, but the suggestive tone in his voice and the way his eyes set upon hers when he was finished speaking clued her in.

Her eyes widened as her cheeks went flush, despite the cool night air. She rolled her eyes and looked away as she laughed nervously, trying to hide her intrigue and ignore the heat that rose below her waist.

"You asked," he reminded her in his defense.

She shook her head in acknowledgment, "I suppose that I did." Though, she hadn't expected such an answer, she thought to herself.

Oh, but how she longed for a demonstration of those wishes of his for her that he had alluded to, thinking about the preview she'd received with their brief encounter in the kitchen earlier.

Scolding herself for letting her mind wander to inappropriate places – especially in the circumstances – she set her focus upon Klaus, giving him a moment.

"What about you?" she queried.

His eyebrows rose questioningly.

"Did you any make wishes for yourself?" she clarified, turning her back to the street below has she leaned back against the railing.

Another cheeky grin appeared on his face. "I'm afraid those are also better demonstrated than discussed."

She rolled her eyes again with a scowl, doing her best to ignore the flutter in her chest. It didn't matter that Klaus was a thousand year old hybrid, he started out as a twenty-something testosterone fueled male – not that it was an excuse, just an explanation.

He chuckled at her reaction before turning serious.

"I wished that I was worthy of you," he confessed so quietly that he was barely audible to her before he took a generous sip from his liquor glass. "Or that you'd give the chance to try."

His desire for her warmed her heart, but it strained her conscience. She felt guilty for having made him feel so inferior during his days in Mystic Falls when she had come to realize that none of them were any better than Klaus. She had used that false distinction as a defense mechanism early on – as a way to maintain distance between her and him, but it wasn't real. She and her friends had done terrible things as Klaus had done, and not everything Klaus had done was terrible.

She gave him a faint smile. "I'm here, aren't I?" she reminded him.

Her response seemed to take him off guard as he sucked in a breath.

They stood silently for a few moments, as if they were processing the crossroads they were at and the implications of it all without the need to say anything more about it. She was sure they would broach that subject in more detail in time, but this moment was not about them.

"I wished for more time with Elijah," he admitted more vulnerably, his eyes now becoming glassy as he continued to reveal his wishes to her.

Instinctively, she placed her hand on his back in an effort to console him in some way.

She sighed regretfully, knowing that Elijah was at the forefront of his troubled mind.

"You'll always wish for more time," she sympathized, studying the grout lines of the brick wall, thinking about those she had lost in her life – her father, her mother, and Stefan.

Klaus gave her a knowing look, realizing that she appreciated as well as anyone the feeling of impending loss that he was experiencing.

"But all you have is right now," she reminded him. "And so you should make the most of it with Elijah while you can," she encouraged, hoping he would listen to her and return downstairs.

He was pensive for a moment, thinking about her advice before downing the contents of his drink.

"I'm going to need another one of these then," he commented, tipping his glass towards her before returning inside.

* * *

The three of them walked together towards the open square and the park bench they had frequented on many occasions throughout their time in New Orleans – he was on one side of Elijah and Rebekah was on the other.

Tourists had long since disappeared from the square, returning to their accommodations just as the sun was on the verge of rising. The sounds of crickets were waning and the songs of birds grew louder.

His thoughts were a blur as the generous helping of bourbon before they departed prevented him from dwelling on any one thing too long – in particular, Elijah's impending fate.

He trailed behind Elijah and Rebekah as Elijah took Rebekah's hand in his and stopped in front of the bench.

"Many moons ago we sat here and discussed the future of our family," Elijah recounted as he glanced around the square and up at the fading moon before looking at Rebekah sincerely. "All too often, you put your future on hold for the sake of our family," he acknowledged to Rebekah.

It was true, he thought as he studied the paved walkway beneath his feet, hanging back to give Elijah his moment with Rebekah. Rebekah had followed him and Elijah wherever they were off to next whether it was running from their father or aiding in his quest to break his curse. Of course, that was when she wasn't sealed in a coffin, he acknowledged guiltily. She had always put them before her own happiness.

"I'm sorry for that," Elijah apologized regretfully.

Rebekah shook her head immediately. "You don't have to apologize," she assured him, her eyes watery with tears.

"Then perhaps you'll allow me to make it up to you," Elijah proposed to Rebekah who was eyeing him with curiosity.

The hint of Elijah's offer sparked his own interest as he continued to listen to their conversation from the sidelines.

"I've asked Caroline to get you the cure. In a handful of decades when it's time, you can go to Mystic Falls and get it. Then, if you no longer wish to be a vampire, it's your choice," Elijah revealed, his hand weaving through her hair as Rebekah processed what Elijah's words meant.

Truthfully, he was as surprised as Rebekah was, not having expected Elijah to arrange such a gift for their sister. It explained why Elijah wanted to speak with Caroline privately after their dinner, knowing that if anyone could make Rebekah's dream come true, it was Caroline, given her continued friendship with the doppelganger. In the past, he would have made a snide remark about Rebekah living a human life, and he would have intervened to stop her from taking the cure and making an irreversible decision that she may come to regret, but now, he felt no desire to intervene. He wanted Rebekah to be happy and it's what Elijah wanted as well.

"Live the life you've always wanted to live, my sweet Rebekah," Elijah encouraged her, caressing her face as she thanked him gratefully before they embraced.

When they parted, he could see their bittersweet expressions. Rebekah was fighting back tears and Elijah was doing his best to maintain his usual stoic presence – though he could tell by his quivering lips that he was having difficulty.

He closed his eyes briefly, wishing that this wasn't reality and that he would wake up and find that it was all a horrible nightmare. When he opened them again, Rebekah was looking at him sympathetically.

Nodding to Elijah one final time, she approached him, hugging him as well, knowing that he would be the one to see their brother off, and knowing how deeply losing Elijah would wound him. "I'm a phone call away," she told him before stepping back, brushing a few stray tears away from her cheeks.

He gave Rebekah a small appreciative nod and watched alongside Elijah as she walked away, down the street and disappearing into the shiny morning mist.

"I don't want your last memory of me to be my death," Elijah stated, removing the stake from inside his jacket as he approached the bench and sat down.

He looked at Elijah helplessly. "I can't leave you like this, Elijah," he said firmly, sitting down beside him. "It should be me. I should be going with you. You've always followed me into the fire. I should be doing the same for you," he mumbled out his thoughts.

It should have been him who made the sacrifice for Hope. At the very least, he shouldn't be letting Elijah do this alone – to face whatever the next life had in store for him alone.

Elijah shook his head in protest as he studied the white oak stake in his hand.

"Nonsense; then my sacrifice would be for naught," Elijah pointed out.

He frowned, feeling conflicted.

Elijah put his hand on his shoulder affectionately. "I did this for you, Niklaus, and I expect that you will take full advantage of this life that you have in front of you," Elijah said to him sternly.

"What life is this without you by my side, brother?" he wondered aloud shakily as he swallowed hard to contain his emotion and prevent it from getting the better of him.

"You have a beautiful daughter, Niklaus, who wants more than anything to have her father in her life for decades to come," Elijah reminded him, referring to Hope. "And you've somehow managed to capture the heart of a woman whose light rivals your darkness," Elijah mused, referring to Caroline. He did not take offence to Elijah's surprise about managing to win Caroline's affection – he knew it was said in jest, but he also knew what a feat it was – he was not easy to love and Caroline Forbes did not love easily. "This is the life that you can have if you embrace it," Elijah answered readily.

This was the life that Elijah had chosen to forego for his sake, he thought regretfully.

"I don't deserve the unconditional love you've given me, brother, but I am so grateful," he said, genuinely appreciative.

He wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for his brother, Elijah. In fact, he likely would never have made it out of his teenage years as a human all those centuries ago if not for Elijah coming to his defence every time he was marked as the target for Mikael's wrath – which was often.

"It's been a glorious ride, Niklaus, and the greatest honour," Elijah said reverently, looking at him briefly before looking ahead, his own emotion displaying on his cheek as a tear escaped from the corner of his eye.

Elijah handed him the white oak stake and he took it reluctantly. A part of him wanted to destroy it before he or Elijah would have a chance to use it, but he knew that wouldn't solve the problem, it would only make things worse.

Rising from the bench, Elijah looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to stand alongside him and use the white oak stake to destroy the Hollow's dark magic.

"I don't know if I can do this," he sighed hesitantly, prolonging the inevitable for just a few more moments as he forced himself up from the bench.

Elijah eyed him sympathetically. "You have to do this, Niklaus. It's okay," he reassured him.

He embraced his brother one final time. As the reality of that hit him, hot tears slid down his cheeks, unable to hold back his sorrow any longer. He took comfort in Elijah's arms, feeling like he was a young child all over again, frightened by a thunderstorm in the middle of the night and seeking out his older brother to protect him. Closing his eyes, his wolf took in Elijah's scent – inscribing it into his memory so that he would never forget it.

Pulling back, he met Elijah's eyes with his own, hoping that through his eyes he could say all of the things he never got to say to his brother – even after having spent centuries together.

"I love you, brother," he said to Elijah, gripping the oak stake discreetly in his hand to his side, readying it for what he was about to do.

Elijah smiled at him, though his eyes were glassy and his cheeks were tear-stained.

"I love you too, brother," Elijah replied.

In one swift motion he went to thrust the stake up into Elijah's chest to pierce his heart, but a powerful unexpected blow sent him flying backwards through the air. In the midst of the sudden burst, he felt himself lose his grip on the white oak stake.

He hit the ground with a violent thud, his head cracking against the hard surface, causing him to growl on pain upon feeling the impact. The force would have been enough to kill any human, he suspected.

Was this the natural reaction between the white oak stake and the dark magic inside of Elijah? He wondered as he lay flat against the walkway, feeling numb and paralyzed as he tried to reorient himself to his surroundings.

Gritting his teeth in frustration at his limited ability to move, he focused his senses.

He swallowed, the faint taste of bourbon and copper still lingering in his dry mouth against his tongue.

The indigo sky was quickly being replaced with hues of purple, red, and orange as the sun continued its rise on the Crescent City and the moon descended. He could see its reflection begin to appear on the roof peaks he could see from the corners of his eyes.

His hearing picked up the faint echo of a female voice chanting. She boomed louder as he regained full consciousness. It was a spell, recited in Latin, though he had trouble concentrating on the words to translate its meaning.

He flattened his calloused hands against the worn and damp paving stones, mustering what energy he could, to prop himself up on his forearms to investigate the source of the chanting.

It had shocked him to discover that he had been blown nearly a hundred feet from where he and Elijah had first sat on the bench moments ago.

His eyes widened in shock at the sight of Hope standing over Elijah's lifeless body, continuing her chants. Her features were barely visible, concealed by the object aglow in her hand.

"Hope!" he shouted at her as the heavy weight of his body kept him confined to the ground – an inconvenience he now suspected was spell-induced. "What are you doing?" he demanded helplessly.

Hope deliberately ignored his calls to her as she continued reciting the spell she appeared to be placing upon Elijah.

"Answer me!" he shouted at her to no avail as he continued to fight against the force of the spell keeping him down.

Perhaps Hope had somehow been possessed by a force stronger than herself – the Hollow, maybe – fighting against their efforts to destroy the dark magic.

Growling angrily, he began scanning the square for any sign of the white oak stake that had fallen from his hand.

The rising light of dawn was making it easier to see and it was then that he spotted what he believed to be the stake, having fallen near a waste basket a few dozen feet from the bench where he and Elijah had sat.

Forcing himself onto his chest, he struggled at a snail's pace as he attempted to move towards the white oak stake.

It felt like he was fighting against the weight of boulders trying to inch closer to the stake. At this point, he wasn't even sure what use he had for it now, but he knew he needed to reach it – whether for his own protection or to complete what he had set out to do as far as Elijah was concerned.

Before he could reach the stake, Hope fell eerily quiet. He cast a glance over to where Elijah rested and was nearly blinded by an eruption of light. When the light subsided, Elijah's body was gone and Hope stood still, seemingly in a trance, before dropping to the ground herself.

* * *

As morning light began to trickle in through the white drapery, she tossed restlessly unable to sleep, notwithstanding the luxurious mattress and linens of the king-sized bed in the stately Mikaelson guest-suite.

The events of the last 48 hours were replaying on loop in her mind, interrupted only by thoughts of Klaus, Rebekah, and Elijah.

Checking her phone for the hundredth time, she knew it was very likely that Elijah was already gone – his sacrifice solidified by the white oak stake at the hands of his beloved brother and the dark magic of the Hollow forever destroyed.

While she knew Rebekah had plans to connect with Marcel afterwards – no doubt to seek his comfort and a distraction from the pain Elijah's loss would inflict - Klaus had not returned to the Mikaelson compound as he assured her that he would. She had been awake listening for his anticipated arrival. She was sure Hope and Freya were awake waiting for the same thing.

She was worried – worried that her worst fears were coming true – that Elijah's loss had already sent Klaus into a tailspin of darkness. She avoided scrolling through the news apps on her phone, fearful that she would find them littered with stories of suspicious deaths in the Quarter – victims of Klaus's sorrow – collateral damage as he would call it.

Shaking her head, she tried to talk sense to herself in an effort to assuage her concerns. He had likely need some time alone; perhaps he had crashed one of the many bars of the French Quarter after hours to self-medicate with more bourbon – she could only hope that he was draining bars and not people as a best case scenario.

She huffed, illuminating her phone once more, the glow assaulting her eyes as she debated about whether or not to check in with him to make sure that he was okay. On the one hand, she wanted him to know that she was here for him if he needed her, on the other, she didn't want to be too overbearing. When Klaus was troubled, he was reclusive, he preferred to be alone. She knew that as well as anyone. She wanted to be respectful of his space while also making sure he didn't self-destruct.

Her phone began to buzz unexpectedly in her hands, startling her. At first, she thought it might be Klaus checking in, but the call display confirmed that it was Alaric.

"Hello? Ric?" she answered readily, her anxiety further amplified by whatever was prompting Alaric's very early morning phone call.

"Did I wake you?" Alaric asked apologetically.

She shook her head though he was unable to see her. "No, I couldn't sleep – waiting for Klaus," she confirmed with a sigh which turned into a yawn.

"I'm sure that wasn't easy for him," Alaric acknowledged, knowing she was referring to Klaus sacrificing Elijah with the white oak stake to destroy the dark magic.

She sensed that Alaric was biting his tongue, refraining from suggesting further possibilities as to Klaus's whereabouts after the sacrifice to spare her from further anxiety – possibilities that involved the hybrid revelling in blood, murder, and mayhem. Alaric may not have thought very highly of Klaus, but he did always look out for her as best he could as the only living mother of the girls they shared together.

"You obviously can't sleep either," she pointed out, given the time. "Is everything alright?" she queried worriedly, running her free hand through her hair.

Alaric yawned on the other side of the phone and she could hear him recline back in his office chair. "I'm worried about the girls," he revealed.

"Why? Did something happen?" she wondered, sitting up in bed as soon as Alaric mentioned Lizzie and Josie.

"I'm not sure," he replied cryptically.

"What does that mean?" she pressed, annoyed by Alaric's vague answer.

When it came to her daughters, she didn't want to play guessing games – she was already on edge as it was.

"I know the merge isn't supposed to take place until the girls turn 22, but I fear that the magic they're doing now is having more of an impact on the merge than we thought," he hypothesized seriously.

She closed her stinging eyes, trying not to think about the impending merge her daughters would face in just a few short years. It was a constant stress for her and even when she wasn't actively thinking about it, it was always weighing on the back of her mind.

"What makes you think that?" she questioned, curious as to what had roused Alaric's suspicions.

"Tonight when the girls were getting ready for bed, Lizzie lost it when she discovered Jo was wearing her favourite pyjamas," Alaric recalled.

"That sounds like typical Lizzie," she shrugged, knowing that her daughter, who carried her grandmother's namesake, could be overdramatic over the smallest things, which they had been told by her paediatrician was a manifestation of her anxieties.

"Remember the stuffed bear of yours that you had when you were a girl that you gave Jo – that she still sleeps with?" Alaric commented. "Well, Mr. Bear is currently a pile of burnt black fuzz. It was like Lizzie lost all control of her abilities."

She gasped, knowing that type of reaction towards her sister was not characteristic of Lizzie, and feeling a little sad that her childhood teddy bear had been selected as her target to hurt her sister.

"Jo's reaction to that was not any better than Lizzie's," Alaric continued. "It's like the power of her scream sent Lizzie's phone flying like a rock through their bedroom window. Needless to say, the phone is destroyed and I'll be calling a contractor later today to come and replace the window," he sighed.

So much for not needing new cell phones, she thought to herself, thinking about how the girls had asked for new phones in exchange for helping Klaus with the spell.

Their girls were prone to spats with one another – it's what siblings did, she understood, even though she had been an only child herself. It was normal. It was even not out of the ordinary for the twins to purposely use their magic on one another in mischievous and humourous ways when their sibling was being particularly annoying – something she and Alaric discouraged and disciplined the girls for. However, it was not like them to seemingly lose control and seek to inflict such harm upon the other.

"Where are they now?" she wondered worriedly.

"Lizzie is sleeping in your room and Jo is sleeping in Hope's room until I can get the window fixed tomorrow and they can stand to be in the same room with one another again without torturing one another," Alaric explained.

She nodded to herself. Notwithstanding the broken window, it made sense to separate the girls for the night to let them cool off and rest on their own without trying to antagonize one another further.

"This is my fault," she sighed. "I convinced you to let them help Klaus with the spell. It's my fault, you can say it," she told Alaric as she shook her head guiltily.

While he didn't say it, she knew Alaric was thinking it. She and Alaric were both protective when it came to the girls and their magic, however, being a supernatural herself, she was often more liberal in that respect – she wanted the girls to be able to embrace who they were as witches. The fact that she had convinced Alaric to allow the girls help Klaus was simply another nail in the coffin of Alaric's opinion of Klaus and something she suspected that he would hold over her head.

"You didn't know that this would happen," Alaric said half-heartedly in an effort to allay her guilty conscience.

"What do you think we should do?" she wondered, hoping that Alaric had already thought out a plan of attack in the wee hours of the morning before he called her.

"I think we need to be more careful about the girls using their magic," he answered.

Of course – that meant no more powerful spells for centuries' old hybrids.

"And we should ramp up our search for a way to stop the merge," he added.

"Okay," she agreed, trying to think more practically about the search and what their next step might be.

"Emma and Bonnie have given me some names and locations in Rome that might be useful for us to canvass for help," Alaric said quickly, already on top of the next step. "I think you should leave as soon as you can get a flight."

While they took turns on these missions, it was often easier for her to go given her supernatural abilities and their mutual desire to have her maintain a lower profile at the school given her notoriety in Mystic Falls and the fact she hadn't aged a day since she was a teenager. It would be a matter of time before the good genes and plastic surgery excuses could no longer sustain themselves.

"What will we tell the girls?" she thought aloud, knowing Josie and Lizzie would not be very pleased to discover that she would be travelling to Europe without them again.

"Recruitment," Alaric answered quickly – that being their go-to explanation whenever one of them left to investigate leads on ending the merge.

"I hate lying to them," she sighed, knowing that sooner or later, she and Alaric would have to come clean with the girls about the fate that awaited them on their 22nd birthday. At the same time, she knew keeping the merge from their girls was for the best – they didn't need such a big shadow cast over their lives.

"I know," Alaric agreed. "But, it won't entirely be a lie – I have some leads on a werewolf pack in Norway and some follow ups from when you were in France," he informed her.

While she was relieved to have a legitimate reason for her trip, and she always looked forward to helping supernatural kids who need guidance and support, it was still only a partial truth. She hoped that with this trip she would find the answer to stopping the merge that she and Alaric had been searching for so that the secrets they kept from their daughters could stop.

"I'll make the travel plans, if you organize the information I'll need," she requested.

Alaric was quiet, seemingly distracted, as she heard him rifling through what sounded like items on his desk and in his desk drawers.

"Ric?" she questioned, sensing something was off as the searching sounds became more frantic. "What's wrong?" she prodded.

"It's gone," Alaric stated with a panicked tone.

"What's gone?" she asked.

"Hope asked if she could pull some of the spell books from my office the other night," Alaric said in a self-deprecating tone. "I should have known that she was up to something," he scolded himself.

"What?" she demanded, annoyed once again by his delayed answer.

"The Ascendant," he answered. "And the Bennett blood. They're both gone."

She knew that the powerful combination of the two created a portal to a place her daughters had created.

Her eyes widened with surprise. "The prison world," she concluded.

Alaric lamented his frustration with a groan of complaint.

"You need to find Hope," Alaric said sternly through the phone, the exasperation and anxiety evident in his voice.

Upon Alaric's instruction, she heard a raucous commotion downstairs – it had sounded like the doors to the Mikaelson compound had burst open forcefully.

"Freya!" she heard Klaus implore with a thunderous and panicked shout.

"I think it might be too late," she said to Alaric regretfully. "I'll call you later," she told him as she disconnected the call before Alaric could respond.

* * *

Opening the doors to her guest room, Klaus's figure blew by her with an unconscious Hope in his arms, carrying her towards what she presumed to be Hope's bedroom.

A door on the third floor creaked open and Freya scurried down the stairs appearing half awake as she yawned deeply. Her hair was strewn messily around her face and she was dressed haphazardly in twisted sweatpants and a t-shirt.

Freya's appearance made her feel somewhat better about her own – her hair bunched up in a messy bun, no makeup, a simple white tank top and some silk black and pink floral capri pyjama pants. She was likely a sight for sore eyes.

She and Freya exchanged worried glances as Freya walked by her in pursuit of Klaus, while she lagged behind, wanting to give Klaus and Freya their space with Hope.

"What happened?" she heard Freya ask Klaus worriedly from Hope's room as she approached the doorway.

"Elijah and I…" Klaus started breathlessly. "I was just about the use the white oak stake and then Hope interceded. She did some sort of spell. Elijah disappeared and then she fainted," he finished explaining.

She heard Freya sigh. "After you and Rebekah left with Elijah, Hope said she was going to her room to be alone."

Peering into Hope's room from the doorway, she saw Freya sitting with Hope who was laid out on her bed with Klaus waiting impatiently on the opposite side, his back turned to her, as he waited for Freya to inspect Hope.

Freya placed a hand on Hope's chest, her eyes closing briefly as she uttered a soft spell underneath her breath.

"What did you do?" Klaus questioned, obviously concerned for his daughter's well-being. "Is she okay?"

"She's fine – tired, but fine," Freya answered. "I transferred some of my magic to her in order to help her reenergize. She's just exhausted from whatever spell she performed," she informed Klaus. "She didn't say anything to you or Elijah?" Freya wondered.

Klaus shook his head as he reached in his pocket.

"It all happened so quickly," he explained, pulling from his pocket what she had expected. "But she had this," he revealed to Freya, handing it to his sister from across the bed.

Freya reached for the object and began to study it carefully.

"What is it?" Klaus asked Freya.

Before Freya could reply, she cleared her throat to interrupt. "It's the Ascendant," she answered Klaus's question as both he and Freya looked to her with scrutinizing curiosity, somewhat surprised by her presence in the doorway.

She did her best to disregard the way Klaus's eyes lingered upon her, embarrassed by her dishevelled appearance though it was not the first time he had seen her like this, she thought, referencing the night before this one and the evening of her birthday after he'd put Tyler up to poisoning her with his werewolf venom so he could swoop in and be the hero.

Shaking away her brief self conscious thoughts, she refocused on the topic of discussion.

"I know where Elijah is," she told them.

And so she explained everything to Klaus and Freya. She recounted the brutal history of Kai Parker: his time with Damon and Bonnie in the prison world, how he'd wiped out the entire Gemini Coven, killing Jo at her wedding to Alaric, how he'd tried to kill Lizzie and Josie, and ultimately, how Bonnie, Lizzie and Josie created a new prison world where Kai remained trapped to this day. She told them of how Alaric retained the Ascendant with Bennett blood in case Kai should ever make another escape from the prison world and how Hope must have taken the Ascendant and the Bennett blood from Alaric's office after he'd let her pull some spell books from his personal collection.

"So, you think Hope sent Elijah to the prison world your daughters created with the Bennett witch?" Klaus summarized, obviously conflicted by this latest twist of events.

She nodded.

"How would Hope have known about the spell or the location of the items?" Freya wondered.

She shrugged, unsure. "Ric documented everything related to Kai and the Gemini Coven to protect Lizzie and Josie, and to hopefully help us find a way to stop the merge. Hope could have read about it in one of his books," she hypothesized. "Or, perhaps my daughters thought they would lend some more assistance," she suggested, annoyed that her daughters had possibly taken matters into their own hands to help Hope.

Klaus sighed in frustration and Freya looked at him sympathetically.

"Surely if there is a way to send someone to the prison world, there is a way to bring them out," Freya concluded as she stood from Hope's side.

She nodded reluctantly, her reaction not lost on Klaus who was observing her response. There were ways to create a portal to the prison world, but it was not without its dangers.

Putting his hands to his lips in thought, Klaus shook his head in response to Freya's remark as he began to pace beside Hope's bed. "Opening up a portal to the prison world means opening it up to everyone who inhabits it – including the twins' dearest uncle who tried to have them killed," Klaus pointed out, eyeing her sympathetically, his comment reassuring her that while he wanted to return Elijah, he did not want to put her girls in jeopardy. "And by the time we access the prison world, the Hollow will have gotten a greater hold over Elijah," he added.

"So what do we do? Leave Elijah trapped in the prison world with Kai?" Freya wondered.

"That's precisely what we do," Klaus answered readily. "Surely uncle Elijah via the Hollow can give uncle Kai a run for his money?" he mused as though this was some sort of supernatural Hunger Games.

She and Freya both gave Klaus concerned looks – surely Klaus would not leave Elijah to be the vessel for the Hollow for the rest of eternity engaged in a battle royale with Kai Parker as they both occupied the same prison world.

"The prison world may not be able to hold the two of them forever," she noted, referring to the Hollow and Kai, worried that the strength of their magic might somehow be enough to destroy the prison world, unleashing them back to the real world.

"I don't intend to leave Elijah there forever, love, but Hope's actions, however reckless and impulsive they were, have bought us time to find a way to put an end to the Hollow and save Elijah – and perhaps exterminate Kai Parker while we're at it," Klaus proposed, sparking her intrigue, "killing two cockroaches with one stone, so to speak," he concluded, his mind working overtime as he considered various ideas and possibilities.

Ending Kai Parker once and for all, in the process of destroying the Hollow, would give her peace of mind as far as he and the threat that he posed to her daughters was concerned.

Thinking about Kai's permanent demise turned her mind to the merge – Alaric's original reason for calling her in the middle of the night.

Just as she was about to mention it, Hope's eyes shot open, taking them all by surprise as she rose from her bed, gasping for a breath, clearly disoriented by her surroundings.

Both Freya and Klaus rushed to Hope's side, sitting on either side of her with concern etched on their faces.

Klaus brushed Hope's hair away from her face, inquiring if she was alright. She smiled at the sight of him comforting Hope.

Deciding to give them a moment alone with Freya, knowing that Klaus would want to talk to Hope about her earlier actions, she returned to the guest room.

* * *

When she returned to the guest room, she tried to close her eyes and catch up on missed sleep after texting Alaric an update to reassure him, but her mind would not shut off, even more so now.

This was not helped by the morning light seeping in through the windows and the sound of the birds and the rest of the Quarter beginning to come alive outside.

Only a short while after lying down, she rose from the bed with a defeated huff. Grabbing her robe from her suitcase to shield her arms from the cooler morning air, she strode over to the French doors leading out to the covered terrace.

With the sun rising, the streets of the Quarter looked much different than they had the night before. Delivery trucks dropping off groceries and liquor were wrapping up their stops to make way for the tourists who were beginning to mill about.

"It looks a bit different during the day, doesn't it?" Klaus said from behind her, his unexpected appearance on the terrace surprising her as he repeated what she had been thinking as if he could read her thoughts.

Gripping the railing with one hand, she nodded, maintaining her gaze out onto the street.

"I didn't mean to startle you, love," he apologized. "I knocked but you didn't respond," Klaus explained.

With everything going on, she couldn't blame him for worrying when she hadn't answered his knock at her door.

"I couldn't fall back to sleep," she told him, trying to suppress a yawn.

She focused on Klaus's presence, his movements drawing close enough that she could smell his familiar scent and almost feel his torso against her back as he drew in a breath behind her.

A part of her wanted to relax against his chest to feel him close, but she hesitated knowing that over the last while their relationship had been in a state of flux – in a relatively short period of time they went from having not seen one another in years to nearly picking up where they had left off in the woods earlier that night in the kitchen had it not been for Elijah's interruption.

"_Take a chance Caroline, I dare you" _Klaus's words echoed in her mind.

With a deep exhale, she shifted back slightly. Feeling Klaus behind her, she allowed herself to rest against him – something she had longed to do ever since the moment she saw him standing at the top of the stairs when she and Hope had first arrived.

She knew that she took Klaus by surprise, feeling his body tense briefly against hers. His bewildered reaction amused her while the warmth of his body soothed her and she sighed contentedly.

Realizing that her actions had been intentional in that moment, she could feel his muscles relax as he settled into the feeling of her close. His right hand set protectively over her shoulder while his left feathered over her own hand at her side as he wove his fingertips in between hers lightly – the small touch sending shivers up her covered arms.

"How is she?" she asked him, referring to Hope, trying to distract herself from the feelings he was stirring inside of her.

"She seems fine – just tired. I let her rest," Klaus answered.

As Freya had concluded, Hope was probably exhausted from the spell she had done.

"Good," she said encouragingly with a smirk, knowing that Klaus was likely itching to interrogate Hope about Elijah and the spell she had performed.

Klaus chuckled, sensing that she was poking fun at him a little. "When she wakes, she and I will be talking later," he confirmed, subtly confirming that he would not let Hope get away with what she had done that easily, even if it had possibly meant that Elijah could be saved.

"Well, it looks like you may get your wish about Elijah," she commented, referring back to their conversation from the night before when he had opened up to her about the wishes he'd made during the wish burning ceremony and how he longed for more time with his brother.

She knew that notwithstanding the challenges Elijah's current situation presented, it gave Klaus renewed hope and optimism.

Klaus replied with a satisfied hum in affirmation. "You never told me what you wished for last night?" he questioned curiously.

She thought back to the wishes she'd made, knowing that she couldn't avoid his question given that he'd revealed his wishes to her with her convincing.

"I wished for the same thing for the twins that you wished for Hope," she explained. "I wished for a way to end the merge," she added, referring to the peculiarities of Lizzie and Josie's situation.

"We will find a way, sweetheart," Klaus replied, referencing the merge as his hand tightened around hers reassuringly. His use of _we_ in his response was not lost on her.

"I wished I could see my mom and Stefan again, to know that they are okay – that they have peace," she explained solemnly.

"I know," Klaus empathized.

Alaric crossed her mind as she recalled the wishes she'd made. "I wished that Alaric would find someone…someone to focus on the future with instead of his past," she revealed. In a lot of ways, she and Alaric were in similar situations – focused on their school and the girls in an effort to take their mind off those they had lost.

They were quiet for a moment, the silence Klaus's guilty acknowledgement of his involvement in Alaric's tragic past with women – Jenna Sommers.

"Surely he's a hit with the single mothers of your students?" Klaus wondered cheekily, trying to shift the tone of the conversation.

She mused about how it always seemed that students' mothers always wanted to meet with Alaric instead of her, and to be sure, they always dressed their best.

"You could say that," she agreed. Alaric had been on a few discreet dates with students' mothers in the past, but nothing ever stuck.

"And what about the single fathers of your students?" Klaus queried suggestively.

"Ric leaves the single fathers for me," she joked.

"Plural?" Klaus remarked, his impressed tone laced with judgmental and jealous surprise.

Snickering, she shrugged innocently. "Perhaps just one in particular," she acknowledged slyly, the both of them knowing exactly who she was referring to. "He's quite demanding of my time," she complained half-heartedly.

Klaus laughed and then scoffed, pretending to be insulted by her complaint. "I'm sure he'd give you whatever you wished for a mere moment of your time," he mused in his defence.

She stiffened, the hairs on her arms rising with goose bumps, as his velvet accent spoke into her ear.

"Let's just say that some of those wishes are more appropriately demonstrated than discussed," she grinned, throwing his words back at him.

She sensed him smiling from behind her with intrigue. "Oh?" he prodded anticipatorily, his hand, now around her waist, tightening its grip.

"He told me once that he intends to be my last love," she reminded him, grinning as she pretended to be occupied by the sights of the passersby down below. "I'm still waiting on that one," she sighed for dramatic effect.

Klaus played along, chuckling quietly, obviously having expected the conversation to go in a naughtier direction.

"I'm sure that he meant it," he reassured her.

She tried to suppress her smile at his response to her comment. She had never forgotten those words he had recited to her at her graduation ceremony – they were to this day the most romantic words anyone had ever spoken to her.

Studying the streets from the balcony, she watched them continue to come to life – vendors were opening their shops and the smell of coffee and breakfast pastries began to float under her nose.

"The tour you promised me may have to wait," she sighed regretfully, referring to his plans to show her New Orleans.

Immediately, she felt Klaus tense behind her as he recoiled from their tentative embrace, taking the depressed tone of her voice personally.

"Second thoughts, I assume?" Klaus said glumly.

He came to stand beside her, both hands griping the rail of the terrace as hers now were, his head hung dejectedly, believing that she had a change of heart about the direction they were headed in.

She shook her head decidedly. "No second thoughts," she assured him.

Klaus's posture rose from its slump with her reassurance as he turned to eye her questioningly, seeking an explanation.

"Aside from the dark magic and Elijah being in the prison world," she started, "Ric wasn't calling me about Hope tonight – well, not at first," she informed Klaus, becoming anxious again as her mind focused upon her girls.

"What is it?" Klaus asked, placing a hand over hers, sensing her worry.

"I need to fly out as soon as I can get a flight," she told him, exacerbating Klaus's confusion and concern.

"Back to Virginia?" he questioned.

She shook her head and answered, "Italy."

Klaus's eyebrows rose with surprise as his eyes demanded to be freed from the suspense she was keeping him in.

"Ric was calling about Lizzie and Josie," she informed him. "Klaus, their magic is getting stronger and it's slowly taking control of them. We're worried that it could be speeding up the merge even more."

Caressing her hand with his thumb, Klaus exhaled sharply, empathizing with her fear.

"Ric has some leads in Rome that may give us some answers," she continued, explaining the reason for her intended destination. "Klaus, I need to find a way to stop it before it destroys them," she stated adamantly.

He turned away from her, quietly looking out to the street for a moment, his eyes searching, seemingly frustrated and helpless that he had no answers for her that would assuage her fear.

"Well, it would seem that we both find ourselves in search of an elusive magic to save those we love," he concluded, referring to her daughters and Elijah.

She nodded in agreement, knowing the threats that both the prison world and the merge now posed not only to her girls and Elijah, but to everyone else.

"Perhaps someone fluent in Italian should accompany you on your travels?" he proposed coyly.

"Who did you have in mind?" she wondered, pretending as though she didn't already know who he was referring to.

He laughed bashfully, his mischievous but determined expression reassuring her that they would find the answers that they both were looking for – and perhaps a whole lot more.

* * *

**A/N: I hope you liked the last part! **

**I know some of you may not be entirely satisfied for a few reasons:**

**1\. There were a lot of people who wanted Elijah to actually die in Klaus's place. There was a part of me who wanted to kill off Elijah because this made more sense than both Klaus and Elijah dying like in the show. Elijah made more sense in particular, given how the show had been playing out Elijah's story to that point. Many thought it made sense so that Elijah could find peace with Hayley. I was tempted to write it this way, but I really wanted to write the final episodes as though The Originals wasn't coming to an end and continuing and incorporating some of the Legacies universe. So killing Elijah didn't make sense from that perspective. Plus I never really shipped him with Hayley (where are my elejah/kalijah shippers at?) and so the thought of him finding happiness in some alternate universe with Hayley isn't an idea I'm entirely fond of. I'd rather him have a better romance and how can that happen if he's really really dead? Maybe it's Kai … muah. Sorry, not sorry. **

**On that note, I put Elijah in the prison world after casually watching Legacies this season which explored Kai and the prison world. I was **_**casually **_**watching, just as I was casually watching TVD when they were exploring the prison world concept. I thought it would have made a great temporary solution for the Hollow. If I overlooked some canon about how prison world works, sorry. Also, I didn't use some "big celestial event" like a meteor shower or something since it was just a full moon the evening before, I used the sunrise. My reasoning is two-fold: 1) Alaric sent students and Sebastian to the prison world at whim, and so I don't think Hope would have required some rarer celestial event to do it; 2) my own head canon (which may be contradicted by TVD/TO/Legacies canon) is that sunrises are a weaker time of day for vampires, daylight rings notwithstanding, which would make it easier for Hope to send Elijah there. **

**Also, there's a part of me who thinks that neither Klaus nor Elijah should have died for the reason they did. I know it was written that way because Legacies was continuing on without the majority of The Originals' cast aside from Hope, BUT it made zero sense that Klaus or Elijah died trying to stop the Hollow given how there seemed to be infinite loopholes for every problem in the TVD/Originals universe. To be honest, the S4 ending made more sense and could have worked as the ending to lead into the Legacies show without having Klaus and Elijah die, but without the rest of The Originals cast continuing on to Legacies. **

**2\. No Smut – I know some of you were asking me for it, but it didn't feel right for this as much as I enjoy Klaroline smut. Again, I was really trying to write it the way it could have realistically played out given how TVD/The Originals and Klaroline had unfolded on the actual show to that point. I don't think there would have been smut, though if The Originals was going to cut to a narrated flash forward the way TVD did at its end, then I imagine there could have been a glimpse of Klaroline smut in it. **

**Maybe one day I will write a flash forward to Klaroline's time in Italy/Europe searching for a way to stop the merge and destroy the Hollow while recruiting some new students to the school and include some smut. The sexual tension leading to them finally caving would be amazing to write – it's been building since TVD 5x11 technically. Heh. **

**I'll stop now. Let me know your thoughts and if you'd be interested in me possibly writing some glimpses into their travels and if so, what you would like to see! **


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